1877
My dear Friend,
I have learned that a Russian lady(1) who has rendered the party important services is unable for want of money to find a lawyer in Moscow for her husband.b I know neither the husband in question, nor whether he is guilty or not. But a consequence of the trial could be exile in Siberia and, since Mrs ... is determined to follow her husband, whom she considers innocent, it is most important that she should at least be provided with the means for his defence. Since Mrs ... has left the management of her fortune to her husband and is wholly uninformed about such matters, only a lawyer could set things right.[235]
Mr Taneyev, whom you know and whom I have long esteemed as a devoted friend of the emancipation of the people is, perhaps, the only lawyer in Moscow who would take on so thankless a case. You would greatly oblige me by asking him to concern himself with our friend's exceptionally unfortunate situation.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
131. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 9 January
131
ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT[236]
IN LEIPZIG
London, 9 January 1877
Dear Liebknecht,
D'abord," a Happy New Year to you and family and all our friends.
Herewith the remainder of the 'Philosophy'b; I shall at once set to work on the 'Political Economy' and 'Socialism', although there might well be a hiatus after the 'Philosophy'. I wish you had waited until after the elections[237]; at that time you ought to have been using the space for agitation. Again, I'd be perfectly satisfied if some of my work appeared in two numbers per week, leaving the third free for your other stuff. But should you occasionally give me space in the third number of the week as well, I would naturally not object.
We had already sent Geib £10 via Bracke some time ago, as our contribution to the election fund, and so were unfortunately not in a position to make another one. Hence I couldn't accede to your request to send you something more. Provided you people are not deluding yourselves and the reports in the Vorwärts are not exaggeratedf...]
If the Turks stand their ground, it will soon be all up with the Russians. General conscription has disorganised the Russian army far more than I had expected,[238] while the Turks have never been in better shape and, what is more, their fleet of ironclads is the best and strongest in the world after the British. If things get cracking — and if they don't there'll be another revolution in Constantinople and then things will really get cracking — it will lend singular actuality (topicality)c to your motion on the restoration of Poland.
[...Jto tell the truth. And should they complain of my tone, I trust you will not forget to confront them with the tone adopted by Mr Dühring vis-à-vis Marx and his other precursors, and more particularly with the fact that I substantiate, and in detail at that, whereas Dühring merely calumniates and abuses his precursors.
132. Engels to Hermann Engels. 9 January
They have asked for it, and they're going to be thoroughly hauled over the coals, you have my word for that.
Your
F. E.
132
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN ENGELSKIRCHEN
London, 9 January 1877
Dear Hermann,
Your letter duly received, with the remittance of £300 with which I shall credit you in accordance with the statement. Many thanks for this and also for the current account which I shall take a look at. Your having somewhat increased the amount of your remittance doesn't make any difference. I got it on Saturday evening[3] when I had visitors here and, because of the plethora of visiting and PARTIES at this time of year, could not send you an acknowledgement of receipt until today, which you will, I hope, excuse.
I had no idea Hermann and Moritzb were at university. It will do them no harm at all to study for a year or two and, if they then want to go into the business, the knowledge they have gained will be all the more useful to them; the past two decades have thoroughly demolished the old commercial superstition that in business what is above all required is three years of quill driving, a good hand, the most execrable German, and a notable lack of knowledge. And should they wish to try something else, the whole world will be open to them.
Things may go hopelessly wrong for the Russians. I have always held that the introduction of general conscription[238] would ruin
133. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 21 January
the Russian army. But that it would happen so fast and so gloriously was something I didn't expect. Everything's going to pieces, discipline and administration, officers and soldiers, there's a shortage of everything — far more so even than there was during your splendid mobilisation in 1852, for in Russia theft is assuming really grandiose proportions. The more stores and depots there are for mobilisation purposes, the less there is in them, since they merely provide occasion for theft. And, what is more, the Turks have never been in such good shape as they are today; they already have more troops in Bulgaria than the Russians would be able to throw in with their four army corps (144,000 men on paper). And those four army corps also comprise all the reserves called up in Poland, who would go over at the first opportunity. The Romanian army is there simply for the purpose of being taken prisoner, and the Serbian peasant militia won't find it so easy to muster any more men, and such as it does muster will have already had quite enough.
I am being summoned to table and it's half past five — time for the post. Love to all from
Your
Friedrich
133
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE[16]
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 21 January 1877
Dear Bracke,
Congratulations on the most recent mustering of Social-Democratic forces in Germany.[237] It has greatly impressed other countries, in particular England,where for years Berlin newspaper correspondents have done all they can to bemuse their British readers concerning the state of our party. But 'MURDER WILL OUT', as John Bull says whenever he goes bankrupt.
Well, now I'd like to know at long last (didn't want to pester you about it during the election campaign) just where I am with Miss Isolde.[3] She had sent me the first sample sheet of translation[13]; I had replied telling her she was fitted for the work provided she took her time and didn't go at it at full-tilt, and also sending her the four additional sheets.[12] At the same time, however, I also let her have a pretty lengthy catalogue of sins relating to the sample sheet.[194]
This would seem to have been something of a shock to the little lady's nerves, for her reply betrayed a certain petulance. Undeter-red by this, I wrote again to the effect that I looked upon her as the translator of my choice.[12] Since that time weeks have gone by without sight or sound of her. It is now absolutely essential that the young lady should decide, oui ou non,c and, if the first, that she should actually let me have some work. Perhaps you would be so good as to write and tell her this. Should she have defected, we shall have to try the Scheus,d although I'd be reluctant (not that it's in any way relevant) to have anything to do with the Scheus. There's no more time to be lost. Should the gracious Isolde decline, she would also have to return me the French sheets she has received.
Would you be so kind as to draw up a contract in duplicate — in accordance with the conditions we have agreed — of which one, with your signature, will be retained by Lissagaray and the other, with his signature, will be returned to you.
Salut.
Yours
K. Marx
21 1877
134. Marx to Ferdinand Fleckles. 21 January
Dear Friend,
T o begin with, my best thanks for the medicinal salts and my regret that your first, long letter went astray.
Tomorrow a small parcel of books goes off from here to Madame Wollmann, containing the French edition of Capital for your cousin and, for yourself (from the 'child'[3]), Lissagaray's Histoire de la Commune. T h e muster-roll of the Social-Democratic party in Germany on the occasion of the general elections[237] has rudely alarmed, not only o u r amiable German philistine, but also les classes dominantes in England and France. An English paper comments sourly upon, inter alia, the contrast between 'THE MELODRAMATIC FITS AND STARTS OF THE FRENCH AND THE BUSINESSLIKE WAY OF PROCEEDING OF THE GERMAN SOCIALISTS'.
The increasing extent to which even the ideologists of the German middle classes are being affected by the insidious poison is evident from, amongst other things, a short pamphlet recently published by an old acquaintance of yours, Schäffle, entitled Die
Quintessenz des Socialismus. You ought to order the thing, if only for amusement's sake. It is full of unintentional comedy. For, on the one hand, the little book, as the author himself indicates, is aimed especially at Protestant clergymen who, after all, cannot leave flirtation with socialism entirely to their Catholic rivals. O n the other, Mr Schäffle, with a fantasy truly Swabian, paints so pretty a picture of the future socialist millennium as to make it seem the kingdom come of your cosy petty bourgeois, a paradise fit only for the Karl Mayers of this world.
Not only is the weather here unspeakable — close, damp, with a fog in so deep a tinge of yellow that one has, as I do, to keep the gaslight on throughout the morning, but the 'ORIENTAL QUESTION' is rampant. Wherever you go, you're buttonholed by un John Bull
quelconque : 'Now, SIR, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE ORIENTAL QUESTION?' Politeness precludes one from giving the only appropriate answer: 'I THINK, SIR, THAT YOU ARE A DAMNED ASS.'
135. Marx to Wilhelm Alexander Freund. 21 January
Whatever the outcome of the war,[207] whether favourable or unfavourable to the Little Father in Petersburg,[3] that 'sick man',[239]
deafened and confused by the hysterical philanthropic bellowing of the English liberal 'PARTY OF PROFIT AT ANY PRICE', has given the signal for a convulsion which has long been in the making within his own Empire, the ultimate result of which will be to put paid to the whole of old Europe's present status quo.
Please give your dear cousin my warmest regards and apply yourself seriously to the study of the English language, for if the worst comes to the worst, England is still the best place in which to set up medical quarters.
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
135
MARX TO WILHELM ALEXANDER FREUND[16]
IN BRESLAU
London, 21 January 1877 41 Maitland Park Crescent, N. W. Dear Friend Freund,b
My New Year's greetings to you and your dear wife are, unfortunately, belated owing to pressure of work and a sore throat which I caught during my last days in Karlsbad. My fate there was similar to that of Martin Luther's peasant who, given a leg up on one side of his horse, fell off on the other.[240]
My daughter' sends her best regards to your wife and yourself. She has, inter alia, been guilty of a translation, published by the local Shakespeare Society of which she is a member, of Professor Delius' 'Das epische Element in Shakespeare', a translation which has, however, earned her the highest praise from Mr Delius.[241] She has requested me to ask you for the name of the Swabian anti-
136. Marx to Frederic Harrison. 21 January
Shakespeare professor and the title of his book about which you spoke to us in Karlsbad.[242] The matador of the Shakespeare Society here, Mr Furnivall, is determined not to forego enjoyment of that opus.
The 'Oriental Question' (which will end up with a revolution in Russia, whatever the outcome of the war against Turkey[207]), and the mustering of the Social-Democratic legions at home[237] will perhaps have convinced the German cultural philistine that there are more important things in the world than Richard Wagner's music of the future.[185]
With kindest regards to you and your dear wife,
Your most sincere friend,
Karl Marx
Should you happen to see Dr Traube, would you be so good as to give him my kindest regards and remind him that he promised to send me the titles of his various publications. This would be of great importance to my friend Engels, who is engaged on a work on natural philosophy[3] and intends to give more weight to Traube's achievements than has hitherto been done.[243]
136
MARX TO FREDERIC HARRISON
IN LONDON
[London,] 21 January 1877 41 Maitland Park Crescent, N. W.
Dear Sir,
The bearer of this letter, my nephew, Mr Henry Juta of Cape Town, wants to complete his general studies at the London University, and, at the same time, to become a member of the Inner Temple.[244] For the latter purpose he has to sign a paper stating that he is no attorney etc. and his own signature has to be
137. Marx to Gabriel Deville. 23 January
countersigned by two barristers attesting that he is a proper person etc. As the affair is very pressing, I have taken the liberty to direct him to you in the hope that you will be so kind as to instruct the young man how to find his way out of this difficulty. I have the honour, Sir, to be
Yours sincerely
Karl Marx
Fd. Harrison, Esq.
Neues Deutschland, Nr. 15, Berlin, 15. Januar 1963
137
MARX TO GABRIEL DEVILLE
IN PARIS
[Draft]
London, 23 January 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Citizen,
On receiving your kind letter of 15 December, I wrote to our friend Hirsch about my obligations, stipulated in the contract, to Mr Lachâtre, the publisher of Capital, which do not admit of my agreeing to your project[243] without his authorisation. I then wrote to the latter[12] and from day to day vainly awaited his reply. Finally, a few days ago, I sent him a registered letter,[12] the first having doubtless been intercepted — an everyday occurrence in the Prusso-German Empire. Pending Mr Lachâtre's reply, I should further point out that, even should he give his consent, Mr A. Quest would be quite capable of ordering the confiscation of every 'summary' of Capital. Since Mr Lachâtre had been convicted in absentia of 'communard' acts and was living abroad as a refugee, the judicial administration of Lachâtre's booksellers was placed by the Broglie ministry in the hands of Mr Quest who belongs to the dregs of the conservative party and who has done
138. Engels to Hermann Ramm. 25 January
everything in his power first to hold up the printing of my book and then to prevent its distribution. He would be just the man to play a trick on you, despite the authorisation from Mr Lachâtre vis-à-vis whom I am myself bound by a private contract but who, vis-à-vis Mr Quest, is entirely powerless, since this sequestrator is his legal trustee.
Under the circumstances I think that the best thing would be to put off for the moment 'a summary' of Capital, and in the meantime bring out a short review of it, if necessary in the form of a small pamphlet, which would be all the more useful in that Mr Block (in the Journal des Economistes)" and Mr Laveleye (in the Revue des deux Mondes)h have given the French public utterly false notions of Capital. Such a course had also been agreed at the outset by Mr Hirsch and myself.
Please accept my best thanks for your book which you were kind enough to send me and which is distinguished by great stylistic verve and a sound basis.
I trust the incident that has put us in touch with one another will be the starting point of a sustained correspondence.
Yours ever,
K. M.
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
138
ENGELS TO HERMANN RAMM
IN LEIPZIG
London, 25 January 1877 Dear Ramm,
Since I do not know whether Liebknecht is back from Offenbach,[246] I am writing to you.
To begin with, it is nearly a fortnight now since I had any of the Dühring proof-sheets[153] (the last, sent back at once, being Art.VI) and I'm afraid that a consignment may have gone astray.
Next, I had requested Liebknecht[15] to send me the Nos. of the Neue Welt containing my biography of Wolff[247]; I received the first 4 numbers, but since then it was only from the mutilated Neue Welts used for packing the Vorwärts that I saw that the subsequent part had also appeared. Needless to say, I neither kept a copy of the manuscript here, nor did anything about getting hold of the thing, having taken Liebknecht at his word; would you be so good as to see to this before all numbers have been torn to pieces and used up?
As to the by-elections, we over here are very much in the dark. All we know is that Rittinghausen is 'in', as the English say.[248] A pity that the Christian-Social chaplain, Laaf, was licked; in the first place, it would have been amusing to watch him steering a middle course through the Reichstag and, in the second, since he was evidently doomed to make an ass of himself, he would have stirred up dissension among the working men at Aachen, thus giving us a chance of introducing the thin end of the wedge.
What is most encouraging about the recent elections is the great progress made in the country, particularly in the big farming districts of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg. Thence it's an easy step to Pomerania and Brandenburg and, once inroads have been made into the schnapps country," it will soon be all up with the Prussian monarchy.
Ever your friend,
F. Engels
139. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 14 February
139
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 14 February 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Bracke,
Lissagaray, who is otherwise completely in agreement with your draft contract, is firmly of the opinion that in every case the price (per copy) should be kept to the minimum quoted by you.[1 4]
So far as the free copies for himself are concerned, a dozen would amply suffice.
Apropos! Miss Isolde Kurz has written to me, partly to say that she will be sending you the manuscript direct, while the proof-sheets would come to me from you (I have no objection), partly to ask for a further consignment of sheets from the original; the latter have now been sent her by Lissagaray. But notabene, Lissagaray has also made all manner of alterations to the introduction, additions (very important ones) to the French original, etc., so that nothing should be printed in Brunswick before Isolde has made corresponding modifications to the initial sheets she has already translated. Thus, should Isolde's manuscript be already in Brunswick by the time my letter arrives, it should not be printed but returned to her for alteration.
It goes without saying that the German edition will acquire extra value as a result of these alterations and additions made by the author himself.
With kindest regards,
Yours,
K. Marx
140. Engels to Ida Pauli. 14 February
140
ENGELS TO IDA PAULI
IN RHEINAU
London, 14 February 1877
Dear Mrs Pauli,
I fear that, if all the plans hatched during the winter in Rheinau are to come to fruition, the length of the summer would have to be nine months rather than three. Time will show whether anything can come of the proposal you make in your kind letter, but one major snag is, alas, already evident to me and that is my wife's[3] health. So far she has come reasonably well through the winter, and similarly the wear and tear of the Christmas campaign (in which all festivities here in England are concentrated); but I couldn't yet say to what extent I shall be able to mobilise her, come September, for another Munich campaign without her acting as a drag on the mobility of others. During the past six weeks we have again had bad luck of one kind after another with maids and now, at the very time when she ought to be resting, she often has to exert herself beyond her strength. I had foreseen this eventuality and had therefore reserved the right vis-à-vis the Schupps to bring Pumps back at any time. Now things have come to such a pass that she absolutely must relieve my wife of the housekeeping, and since, apart from anything else, I myself cannot very well get away, I shall probably take advantage of an opportunity which presents itself and have her escorted back home around the 1st or, at the latest, the 15th of March. As soon as I know anything definite, which should be within the next few days, I shall let both Pumps and Miss Schupp have further particulars; until then I would ask you to say nothing about the matter to them.
As soon as we have got the house into some sort of order, I intend to take my wife to the seaside for a fortnight or so to help her recover her appetite and prevent her from getting too debilitated.[249] You'd have laughed had you seen me making the bed last night and lighting the kitchen fire this morning.
That you found the elections[237] tedious I can well believe, seeing that you are not allowed to vote in them. When we take over the helm, not only will women be given the vote, they will also be
•' Lizzie Burns
141. Engels to Marx. 23 February
elected and make speeches. The latter already applies to the school board here and, last November, I gave all my 7 votes to a lady who, as a result, had more votes than any of the other 7 candidates for election. Incidentally, the ladies who sit on school boards here are notable for the fact that they do very little talking and a great deal of working — as much on average as three men. Or perhaps it's a case of 'new brooms sweeping clean'? However, most of these 'brooms' are pretty ancient.
At all events we shall bear the September project constantly in mind and do all we can to implement it. And now I would beg you to convey my wife's and my own warm regards to Pauli and the children and accept our kindest regards on your own behalf.
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
141
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Brighton, 23 February 1877 42 King's Road Dear Moor,
I wrote to Bignami last week, took out a subscription to the Plebe, and wrote to him about the elections.[250] Three days ago, before we left,[249] I received 3 numbers, and he is going to let me have some that are missing.[251] My intervention could not have come at a better time.
Plebe, 7 January, reports proceedings at the Assizes against Bignami, the Questore (chief of police) of Turin (the self-same man who treated Terzaghi to a 'vermouth', see Alliance de la Démocratie Socialiste[3]), for embezzlement (tout comme chez nousb). A policeman, one Blandini, stated that, on Bignami's orders, he had carried out a pro-forma" house search chez Terzaghi, having also been ordered by Bignami only to remove what Terzaghi should give him. When a warrant went out for Terzaghi's arrest, he had already been notified by another policeman, Premerlani, acting on Bignami's orders; Terzaghi era un agente segreto di Bignami che gli dava tre lire (francs) al giorno!* About which the Plebe remarked that this showed what use the fondi segreti dei governi di classec were put to. To which there came a reply from a little Bakuninist sheet, II Martellod—the name betrays my Cafiero.—Since discussion of the revolting Terzaghi case was not permissible, the little sheet fastened on the fondi segreti dei governi di classe: so in your case, it said, the governi non di classee would likewise have fondi segreti, so in your case, too, everything would remain as before — there follows all the same old anarchist rigmarole que l'on
sait.g Having replied to this in due form, the Plebe at once proceeded to attack the Bulletin Jurassien for having been sent into a rage by four lines in the Plebe and acting as though the Plebe were enraged although it had simply been edificatah by the Jurassien's insinuation.
Come to that, [said the Plebe,] one would have to be exceedingly ingenuo' to take the bait proffered by people who, green with envy, went knocking at door after door to beg for a bit of animosity towards us in return for their calumnies. The hand, which has long been sowing tares and discord, is sufficiently well known for its Loyolan i machinations to be instantly detectable and gli onesti non ne facciano tantosto giustizia?-
The same No. contains a letter from E. Dörenberg (Drbg. of the Berliner Freie Presse) on the elections in Berlin.
No. of 16 February, letter from Brussels, 'Cesar De Paepe' about the recent Flemish agitation for factory laws and general suffrage, ends:
Noi crediamo altresi di arrivare, con questo metodo, più prontamente e più puramente all'emancipazione del proletario, piuttosto che star Xi, abbaiando alia luna per degli anni e dei quarti di secolo, e attendendo che mamma Rivoluzione voglia degnarsi di venire a spezzarsi le catene dei lavoratori)
It further speaks of old Becker's proclamation[219] as a symptom, and in most amicable terms.
A very delighted letter from Bignami today, in which he says he will print my stuff on the elections, and confirms that the Federazione dell'alta Italia,[3] which extends from Venice to Turin and will shortly be holding a congress,[252] vuole lottare sul terreno del suffragio universale.[11] The Plebe is its official organ.
Thus the stronghold of lawyers, literati and dilettanti in Italy has been breached. And the best part of it is that all the former Alliance men[201] in Milan, Mauro Gandolfi, etc., of Cuno's time also seem to have gone over. Indeed, a bogus working men's movement could not have survived long in an industrial city like Milan. And Northern Italy is decisive not only strategically, but also to the working men's movement throughout the whole length of the agrarian peninsula.
Thus the world government in Neuchâtel[253] has nothing left that is uncontested except for Spain, and how long will that last?
If these events are to be followed more closely, by the way, it is high time that Mr Demuth took out a subscription to the Bulletin jurassien, as agreed. After all, we've got to know what ana-themas are being uttered by the Holy See's universal dictator and deputy.'
Warmest regards to all,
Your
F. E.
143. Engels to Marx. 2 March
142. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 24 February
My dear Friend,
You would greatly oblige my wife and myself by coming to dine with us tomorrow (Sunday) at 2 o'clock. I shall then give you an explanation for my prolonged silence — throat trouble and work which, to some extent despite myself, has been thrust upon me.[254]
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
143
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Brighton, 2 March 1877 42 Kings Road
Dear Moor,
I have written to Liebknecht[15] and asked him to send the proof-sheets to me here until further notice; I usually get them by Monday at the latest, but have had none this week and am afraid that, as usual, something's been overlooked.[165] Would you be so good as to go to my house and see if any proofs have arrived there, and forward them to me? Mrs Leeson will show you what parcels of newspapers, etc., have arrived and you'll easily be able to pick them out; she can likewise give you NEWSPAPER WRAPPERS, etc., in which to pack the stuff. Otherwise the fellows are quite capable of publishing under my name the balderdash they have set up in type.
In some respects I'm glad that Linaa and Pumps aren't coming until the middle of the month. In the first place, we shall then be home again, as we are thinking of coming back a week on Tuesday ; secondly, it would give me time to send Lina, in addition to the £15 1 sent her in haste (all I happened to have at the time), another £5 against any eventuality, and again make it clear to her (not altogether unnecessarily, perhaps) that she should have an eye to comfortable rather than cheap travel, since all the money I have sent hitherto is, of course, intended only for the journey here.
We've had glorious weather here, but today it's misty and damp with occasional rain. How much the climate down here differs from that in London is apparent from the news item in this morning's paper which says that there was an inch and a half of ice on the water in the parks, whereas here the effect of the slight nocturnal frost had already been dissipated by the sun by ten o'clock. For a couple of weeks at the SEASIDE in winter, Brighton is indeed 'a fine place', which is why the more refined what-d'ye-call-'ems pullulate here. But it's a disgrace to London that, after the aquarium here has attained truly scientific rank by its achieve-ments in the breeding of fish and amphibia, anyone could be presumptious enough to evoke its caricature in Westminster— MUSIC HALL with piscine accompaniment — and with such PUFFING into the bargain!
Best wishes,
Your
F. E.
Caroline Schöler - b 13 March
144. Marx to Engels. 3 March
144
MARX TO ENGELS
IN BRIGHTON
[London,] 3 March 1877
DEAR FRED,
I am sending you the things from Leipzig I found at your house,[3] together with the Plebe. As to the important declaration by the federation of Italia altab in which they state that they have always abided by the 'original Rules' of the International, and officially disassociate themselves from any actual federative link with the Italian Bakuninist groups,[256] you must see that the
Vorwärts gets this as soon as possible, along with the other very interesting, and to me highly welcome, facts contained in the first letter0 you sent me.[257] Otherwise Liebknecht will contrive to make nonsense of this affair too.
I've been very unwell of late, with a chronic cold, catarrh and cough.
ALL RIGHT about Lina.d
Lavrov, who is going through a damned bad period, has praised your anti-Dühring articles, though one (i.e., he) 'is unaccustomed to such gentleness in Engels' polemics'.
You will be getting a longer missive[258] from me some time next Monday'.' Do not regard this as a Diihringian manoeuvre of always making promises one never sticks to — namely doing something.
Kindest regards to Lizzy.
Your
K. Marx
Devil take Hirsch and his Castelnau. The latter has now asked me on behalf of them both to figure as a contributor to a working men's paper which they already have in hand. As if I had the time for that — and Hirsch must surely know that I haven't any! The mere fact of my name appearing, however, would make me needlessly 'responsible'. Because Mr Castelnau himself now admits
145. Engels to Friedrich Lessner. 4 March
that, so long as Quest is in charge, his abrège* will belong to the Land of Nod, it seems he is going to thrash me in some other way. I have yet to see either him or Hirsch lift so much as a finger on behalf of Capital, unlike Laveleye or Block.b
145
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH LESSNER
IN LONDON
Brighton, 4 March 1877 42 King's Road
Dear Lessner,
This morning I got a letter from Hoffmann, 9 Hayes Court, Soho, to whom I had already sent two pounds through you. One child died before Christmas, a second on 15 February and on 25 February he lost his wife; he asks me for help, since he has not yet paid off the funeral expenses for the child and doesn't know how he can meet those for his wife, who is to be buried today, and which amount to £4. The letter (of 28 February) remained in London unattended to and hence I couldn't do anything for him in time; moreover today is Sunday when no action can be taken. Will you be so good as to call on the man and see what can be arranged and how things are with him, and if you have a pound or 30s. at your disposal you could, depending on the circumstances, give it to him on my behalf, or else write and tell me straight away what you think of the matter and I can send a POST OFFICE order. Above all make it clear to the man that I didn't get his letter until this morning and was therefore unable to do anything.
I had to bring my wife here so that she could recover somewhat from her debility and this she has managed to do; she is much
146. Marx to Engels. 5 March
better and I trust she will remain so. We go back on Tuesday week,(1) and a day or two after that Pumps will also be returning, accompanied by Miss Lina Schöler.
My wife sends her warm regards to you and yours and also to Nelli, as does
Your old friend,
F. Engels
146
MARX TO ENGELS[96]
IN BRIGHTON
[London,] 5 March 1877
DEAR FRED,
Dühringiana enclosed.[258] I found it impossible to read the fellow without belabouring him constantly and at some length.
Now, having thus familiarised myself with him (and the section from Ricardo onwards, which I've not yet read, must contain many exquisite pearls), a task that required patience and a club ready to hand, I shall in future be capable of enjoying him in tranquillity. Once one sees how the laddie's mind works, so that one really gets the hang of his method, he proves to be a fairly entertaining SCRIBBLER. Meanwhile, what with my catarrh and consequent irritability, he has done me yeoman service by providing a secondary 'occupation'.
Your
Moor
Apropos. That most virulent article on Gladstone-Novikova, the sight of which had caused the Whitehall Review to quake in its boots, appeared yesterday in Vanity Fair, with improvements by
147. Engels to Marx. 6 March
Barry.[259] As we could see, when Collet's son and daughter[2] came to visit us yesterday, it has met with Papa Collet'sb disapproval, Gladstone being, after all, an honest though crazy man, and a polemic of this sort 'indecent'.
147
ENGELS TO MARX[96]
IN LONDON
Brighton, 6 March 1877 42 King's Road
Dear Moor,
Very many thanks for the long opus re 'critical history'.[258] It is more than I need in order to destroy the fellow utterly in this field too. In fact Lavrov is to some extent right in maintaining that the fellow has been treated too decently hitherto.c When I now re-read the Kursus der Nationalökonomie[11] and knowing the fellow and his ways as I now do, so that I no longer need fear some hidden trap amidst the verbiage and can see the pompous fadaise' for what it is, I certainly consider that a little more contempt wouldn't come amiss. The good Lavrov is entitled to his own feelings about it, of course, and in his nponoBlfe^bi ' can leave out of account the crescendo which the likes of us must always bear in mind when engaged on so protracted a demolition job. When I've finished the 'Philosophy', however, there'll be no further need for him to complain about gentleness, still less when it comes to the 'Political Economy'.
Collet's grave misgivings apropos Gladstone were inevitable.[8]
These are things that ought not to happen without orders from above. It would have been better to have remained silent until Gladstone was back in office and then left it to Urquhart to issue a
148. Marx to Engels. 7 March
grave warning by way of profound INNUENDOES incomprehensible even to the person concerned. The war against SECRET DIPLOMACY must itself be waged secretly and diplomatically.
I shall make a digest of the Plebeiana[257] for Wilhelm.[3] The present split in Italy spells disaster for messieurs les anarchist dictators. The brief comments in this number of the Plebe on the spiriti ristretti ed anarchici—ed alio stesso tempo mostruosa con-tradizione, dittatorialih go to show that Bignami has acquired an intimate knowledge of the peculiarities of these people. All the same, Bakunin was more skilful and patient than Mr Guillaume, who is in too much of a hurry in the matter of world government.
What you sent me wasn't a new proof.[185] I've had none as yet. Wilhelm is making a thorough mess of things.
We return tomorrow week.[249] Lizzy is noticeably restored, appetite almost normal; but here, on this long uninterrupted stretch of beach, the air is really incomparable.
Best wishes,
Your
F. E.
148
MARX TO ENGELS[96]
IN BRIGHTON
[London,] 7 March 1877
DEAR FRED,
As I might forget to do so later, I am sending off this contribution in the wake of my last epistle[258]:
1. The most important point of Hume's view of the influence of an increase in money on the stimulation of industry, a point which shows more clearly than anything else (if, indeed, there had been any room for DOUBT on this score) that he sees this increase as occurring only in conjunction with a depreciation of precious metals, a point to which Hume reverts on various occasions, as is apparent if only from the excerpt I have sent — is that 'THE PRICE OF LABOUR' rises only in the last resort, after that of all other commodities.[3] Now M. Dühringb says not a word about this; indeed, Hume whom he praises so highly, is treated by him in as slovenly and superficial a fashion as all the rest. Besides, assuming he had noticed the thing, which is more than doubtful, he would have seen fit, having regard to the workers, not to praise a theory of this kind but rather TO BURKE THE WHOLE.
2. My own particular way of dealing with the Physiocrats[260]— i.e. as the first methodical (not, like Petty, etc., merely casual) exponents of capital and of the capitalist mode of production—was something I did not, of course, wish to put on display just yet. The fact is, IN PLAIN WORDS SAID, that my viewpoint might be taken up and simultaneously debased by charlatans before I had a chance to expound it. Which is why I did not touch on this in the exposé I sent you.
But in dealing with Diihring it might perhaps be fitting to draw attention to the following two passages in CAPITAL. I quote them from the French edition because they are less vague here than in the German original:
With reference to the Tableau Économique[261]: 'La reproduction annuelle est un procès très facile à saisir tant que l'on ne considère que le fonds de la production annuelle, mais tous les éléments de celle-ci doivent passer par le marché. Là les mouvements des capitaux et des revenus se croisent, s'entremêlent et se perdent dans un mouvement général de déplacement — la circulation de la richesse sociale — qui trouble la vue de l'obser-vateur et offre à l'analyse des problèmes très-compliqués. C'est le grand mérite des physiocrates d'avoir les premiers essayé de donner, dans leur tableau économique, une image de la reproduction annuelle telle qu'elle sort de la circulation. Leur exposition est à beaucoup d'égards plus près de la vérité que celle de leurs successeurs'.0 (258, 259.)
With reference to the definition of 'travail productif'*: 'Aussi l'économie politique classique -a-t-elle toujours, tantôt instinctivement, tantôt consciemment, soutenu que ce qui carac-térisait le travail productif, c'était de rendre une plus-value. Ses définitions du travail productif, changent à mesure qu'elle pousse plus avant son analyse de la plus-value. Les physiocrates, par exemple, déclarent que le travail agricole seul est productif. Et pourquoi? Parce que seul il donne une plus-value qui, pour eux, n'existe que sous la forme de la rente foncière.'[15] (p. 219).
'Although the Physiocrats could not penetrate the mystery of surplus value, yet this much was clear to them, viz., that it was "une richesse indépendante et disponible qu'il" (the possessor thereof) "n'a point achetée et qu'il vend"'[1] (Turgot) (p. 554, Capital, 2nd German ed.), and that the same could not arise out of circulation (I.e., Capital, pp. 141-145).
I happened to be at DINNER when the GREAT Barry arrived IN GREAT HURRY with 8 newspapers under his arm.
English newspaper editors are quite extraordinary ANIMALS. The EDITOR of Vanity Fair (i.e. the subordinate one; Mr Bowles, the head and PROPRIETOR, a semi-Urquhartite, has gone to Spain with his wife for the benefit of the latter's health) had at length published the article[259] from which the Scottish Morning News and the London Whitehall Review had shied away, ditto the 6 GOVERNMENTAL PAPERS, or rather the CENTRAL PRESS which is in the hands of the Tory Ministry and puts their stuff together for them.
Bon.d The same Vanity Fair MAN has, by way of revenge, now taken fright in his turn at the prospect of reprinting (in the interests of the cause and Mr Barry) the article already printed by those 8 journals, namely the one relating to Gladstone's ARTICLE IN THE Contemporary Review.[262] Writes, asking Barry what to do in the event of a LIBEL action. I gave Barry — who had providently come already armed with the above-mentioned 8 PAPERS — instructions as
149. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 16 March
to what answer he should give. I MUST BE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN IF EVEN THIS
HESITATION (WHICH WE SHALL, HOWEVER, OVERCOME) HAS NOT SOMETHING TO DO
WITH THE 'SCRUPLES' OF M R C o L L E T . I T IS, IN FACT, TOO BAD TO TAKE THE SECRET
DIPLOMACY BUSINESS OUT OF THEIR HANDS.'
By the by, Russian diplomacy has degenerated into pure farce. Mr Ignatiyev's TOUR, whether or not it is initially successful, will still remain, no matter what the circumstances, an even more grotesque and compromising pilgrimage than that of Mr Thiers after the farrago of the 4th of September.[263]
From the magnanimous Gambuzzi I have received an epilogue, 9 PAGES long, of his own contriving, upon the magnanimous Fanelli,* who has just died. Presumably intended to make me repent of the insulting remarks about ejusdemh Fanelli in the piece concerning the Alliance.c 201
Your
K. M.
149
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 16 March 1877
My dear Friend,
A member of the HOUSE OF COMMONS (an Irishmand) intends to bring a motion — next week — to the effect that the English government should call upon the Russian government to introduce the reforms (in Russia), which it declares to be necessary in respect of Turkey. He wants to take advantage of the occasion by speaking of the horrors that are occurring inside Russia. I have
150. Marx to Mrs Wollmann. 19 March
already supplied him with a few details about the measures taken by the Russian government against the refractory Poles of the United Church. Could you make a brief résumé — in French — of judicial and police persecution inside Russia in recent years? Since time is short — I was only informed of the matter today — and something is better than nothing, could you, since these incidents are fresher in your memory than in mine, do this 'something'? I believe that would be of great service to your suffering compatriots.[264]
As to Mrs Utin, I can make absolutely nothing of it, but I SHALL
CROSS-EXAMINE HER AT THE NEXT INTERVIEW. H a d s h e n o t , O n V a r i o U S occasions and in the presence of my wife and myself, expressed the wish to see you, we should not have breathed a word of it.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
150
MARX TO MRS WOLLMANN
IN KARLSBAD
[London,] 19 March 1877 [41 Maitland] Park Road
Dear Mrs Wollmann,
I have delayed replying in order to seek advice on so important matter from one of my friends, a former businessman.[3] He returned to London only yesterday, after a long absence.
With the income you mention you can live decently in London, though only, needless to say, on a modest bourgeois basis. In fact London is today probably the cheapest capital in Europe, thus offering the advantage that, provided you keep up the usual appearances, you can run your house in any way you wish, and that no one, not even the rich, need be unduly sociable. The city's enormous size and population relieve one of many considerations which are more or less obtrusive elsewhere. So far as education is concerned, in all the public schools — and these, even from the financial viewpoint, are the only ones I would recommend — they also have German teachers. In some respects the schools themselves are less adequate than those in Germany, in others they are to be preferred. But in any case, and particularly for a boy who is to prepare himself for the STRUGGLE with LIFE, England is a far more useful training school than Germany, that great barracks, servants' hall and nursery.(1)
As regards German teachers for private tuition, there is very heavy competition among them, and so the cost of LESSONS is not high.
Here, as in America and on the European Continent, there is a business crisis which in my view has yet to reach its peak. After that point has been reached, we shall enter the most favourable period of all for the launching of new businesses. But the sooner you move to London, the longer and more leisurely will be the time available to your husband to take the preparatory steps.
I need hardly tell you that both my daughters and I welcome your move to this country as an unexpected stroke of luck.
My kindest regards to Fleckles and the dear children,
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
Should you wish to leaf through some of Capital, it would be best to start with the last section,b p. 314. In the scientific exposition the arrangement is prescribed for the author, although some other arrangement might often be more convenient and more appropriate for the reader.
151. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 23 March
151
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 23 March 1877
My dear Friend,
1 have received the article and it is now in the hands of the member of the House of Commons, to whom, by the by, I shall send the rectification.[264]
Beesly called on me yesterday; I spoke to him about an article by youa for the Fortnightly. He told me he would recommend you to John Morley, the editor-in-chief, but — and this is most disagreeable — it would have to be written in, or translated into, English before being sent to the editor. As to the length of the article, 16 pages is the usual requirement.
Allsop did not give us his latest address; perhaps Le Blanc could get hold of it.
Yesterday I received a letter from St Petersburg with a note advising me that a parcel containing several books had been sent off to me.[265] Unfortunately I have still to set eyes on it.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
152. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 24 March
152
ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
IN GENEVA
London, 24 March 1877
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear old Friend,
I am sending you herewith a money-order for 50 fr. and, I think, 20 centimes and would ask you to send me in return two copies of the Geschichte der süddeutschen Mairevolution[3] and, if you can, the Bulletin de la Fédération jurassienne for 1876. If you can send it through a bookseller, give him the parcel addressed: F. E. care of F. Wohlauer, St. Paul's Buildings, Paternoster Row, London; in which case it will cost very little. Marx and I would like you to use the rest of the money as an additional contribution to the Précurseur.
In No. 32 of the Vorwärts there is an article of mine, 'From Italy',b from which you will have seen that the empire of Messieurs
les Bakuninists is in a truly splendid state of disintegration. The people on the Plebe deserve every support and would certainly be glad to make a reciprocal arrangement with the Précurseur. The paper's address is La Plebe, Via Carlo Alberto No. 1, Milan. The editor is called Enrico Bignami and he has maintained correspondence with me for years, which only became dormant when the Bakuninists' dictatorship was at its fiercest in Italy. Even Mr Malon has defected and he, after all, was one of the first seventeen International Brethren and founders of the Alliance[266]; one by one they are foreswearing their allegiance to the luckless Guillaume. World government is not exactly everybody's cup of tea and, as for these gentlemen's future congresses, there's every likelihood that the goings-on there will be even wilder than at The Hague.[20] Our policy of mercilessly unmasking these people and then letting them rip has been gloriously vindicated. What with Belgium's turning her back on them, the defection of the last remnant in Italy, and the lamentable role they play in Switzerland (the annual shindy in Berne with the obligatory free-for-all), they have nothing left save the minuscule Spanish Alliance which only
153. Engels to Philipp Pauli. 26 March
keeps going betause they have virtually no public outlet there and double-dealings are more easily conducted in the dark.
Your little piece in the Neue Welt amused me greatly.[3] You ought to write a sequel; it's good for the young to be reminded about the earlier movements, otherwise they imagine that they are indebted to no one but themselves.
Your old friend,
F. Engels
153
ENGELS TO PHILIPP PAULI
IN RHEINAU
[London, 26 March 1877]
Dear Pauli,
I can't let this curious letter from Pumps go off without saying once again how very grateful my wifeb and I are to you and your wifec for all the love and kindness you have shown the girl. I hope that when your children are bigger there will at last be an opportunity of squaring the account.
When will you be coming? Schorlemmer swears black and blue that you have to visit England before the summer, but that's all we can find out, and yet it would be very nice to know, approximately, when you will be turning up. Your room is ready; if you were to arrive at the end of this week, Schorlemmer could take advantage of the holidays and come too.
We spent three weeks in Brighton,[249] which did my wife a power of good; she returned stronger than even after last year's long spell at the seaside and recuperative trip, and she had been remarkably low. If only it lasts until the summer.
154. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 27 March
So after all the endless shilly-shallying it now looks as though they are going to come to blows in the Orient after all[207] and I shall be delighted if the Russians take a pasting. The Turks are people of a quite peculiar stamp, who cannot be judged by European standards, and their position, complete with fortresses, between the Danube and the Balkans is inferior in strength only to the position Metz-Strasbourg-Mainz-Koblenz. The Russians may yet break many a tooth there.
And now, warm regards to your wife and children and you yourself from my wife and
Your
F. Engels
154
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV[267]
IN LONDON
[London, 27 March 1877]
My dear Friend,
Could you let me have Ignatiyev's Christian name, ditto a few details about his family and the man himself. As regards his political exploits, I am pretty well informed about them.
There has been a fine old mercantile and financial collapse in Moscow.
Yours ever,
K. M.
156. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 11 April
155. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 29 March[267]
My dear Friend,
My best thanks for the note which I received yesterday evening. You have no idea of the pusillanimity and shilly-shallying of the 'free' English press. That is the only reason why I am not yet in a position to let you have definite news about the fate of your article.[264]
Yours ever,
K. M.
156
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 11 April 1877
Dear Bracke,
Your title's a good one, except that, instead of 'text' you should put 'original text' or else just 'original', whichever you please.[268]
I am returning the first proof-sheet with this note; it will do, because the little madam," despite her evident annoyance with myself, has stuck pretty accurately to my corrections. But every now and again she makes mistakes which are a bit too much of a good thing. On p. 14 we read: 'As luck would have it, a vague piece of news burst open the doors.' How can a 'piece of news', and a 'vague' one at that, burst open doors? In French it's 'une
vague nouvelle', which should read: 'a fresh wave' (of people) that is!
Moreover, the translation has gone damned slowly up till now. Could you send me an approximate list of works which have appeared in Germany during recent years on the commercial and industrial crisis there[118]?
What your complaint chiefly calls for is a 'good' doctor. But whatever you do, don't treat the thing too lightly. Easy to cure in the early stages, the illness will become malignant if not dealt with in good time.
Engels is very dissatisfied with the way in which the Vorwärts is printing his anti-Dühring piece.[186] First they forced him into doing it, and now they pay not the slightest heed to the terms of the contract. At election time,[269] when no one did any reading, his articles were simply used to fill up space; next, they print short, disjointed fragments, one fragment one week, another a fortnight or three weeks later, which means that readers (working men in particular) lose the thread. Engels wrote, admonishing Liebknecht." He believes that this way of going about things is deliberate, that there's been intimidation by Mr Dühring's handful of supporters. It would be quite natural if the same blockheads who originally made such a song and dance about the 'deathly silencing of the hollow fool' should now wish to silence his critics. It's all very well for Mr Most to talk about the undue length of the articles. His apology for Dühring,[159] luckily for him never published, was very long indeed, and if Mr Most has failed to note that there's much to be learnt from Engels' positive exposés, not only by ordinary workers and even ex-workers like himself, who suppose themselves capable of getting to know everything and pronounce on everything within the shortest possible time, but even by scientifically educated people, then I can only pity him for his lack of judgment.
With kind regards,
Yours,
K. M.
PS. Mile Kurz translates 'l'expropriation de toutes les denrées de première nécessité', which means expropriation by the government,
157. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 11 April
or public appropriation, as 'public alienation', which gives completely the wrong sense (p. 16).
Rationnement = being placed on short rations (as in a besieged fortress or on board a vessel when supplies are running out), as 'maintenance of all citizens' (p. 16). She sets down the first word that comes into her head, whether it makes sense or not.
Ditto, p. 16, she translates 'pour faire lever les provinces', as 'to levy the province'; should read 'to cause the provinces' (not 'province') 'to rise'.
157
ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT
IN LEIPZIG
[Draft]
[London, 11 April 1877]
Dear Liebknecht,
I have today received your letter of the 9th. It's the same old story. First you make all kinds of promises, whereupon exactly quite the opposite happens and then, if I complain, I hear nothing from you for a fortnight and I'm told that you had too much to do and would I kindly spare you my unnecessary objurgations. IT IS ADDING INSULT TO INJURY.[3] So often has this comedy been played that I refuse to tolerate another performance.
My letter of yesterday, which will be in Leipzig first thing tomorrow morning, will get to you on 13 Friday,[15] and I expect an immediate reply to my questions. My reply to yours will depend on your reply to these, i.e. if by then there is any need at all for a reply from me.
If, by the evening of 17 Tuesday, I have had no reply, or no adequate one, from you, I shall no longer be able to show you any
158. Marx to Philip Stephen King. 14 April
consideration and shall myself see to it that such articles [155] of mine as remain are not mismanaged as hitherto. In which case it might very well happen that, in the course of things, I shall sooner or later find it necessary to air the whole business in public.
Your E.
158
MARX T O P H I L I P S T E P H E N KING
IN LONDON
[London,] 14 April 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. Dear Sir,
Please send me the Papers: The Greek United Church in Russia just laid before Parliament. Enclosed for account sent £1, 3, 3.
Yours truly,
Karl Marx
159. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 17 April
The agent has just handed me the fee of £2.10/- due to you from Vanity Fair ; I am sending it by the enclosed POST-OFFICE order.
160. Marx to Thomas Allsop. 20 April
I am truly astonished by your letter. It was at my request that you took the trouble to write — and promptly at that — not only the article published, but also the manuscript for the Member of Parliament,[264] and yet you feel you are under an obligation to me! On the contrary, I am the one under an obligation.
We can discuss the Pio affair[270] when you keep your promise and come and see me.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
If they ask at the POST OFFICE for the name of the 'SENDER', you should give my name and address.
160
MARX TO THOMAS ALLSOP
IN LONDON
[London,] 20 April 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
My dear and honoured Friend,
During your last stay at London I spoke with you of Wrôblewski. He was the most able and gallant general of the Paris Commune, and even at the age of 17a years, during the time of the Polish insurrection of 1863, the leader of the insurgent Lithuanians most redoubted by the Russians. During his exile in London he has lived in a poor but respectable way by drawing military maps and doing similar work. Though brought up in the usual style of Polish noblemen, he has courageously borne with more hardship than most of the workmen exiles. It would be in the interest of our cause to procure him the means of entering the Turkish
=> Should be: 27.
161. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 21 April
service now that the war with Russia is at hand,[207] and all the more so that he wields great influence over his countrymen.
Myself, Engels and one or two other friends at London are willing to contribute our quota, if you and some of your friends would act in common with us. What he wants are the costs of travel and some money for dress etc. I hope that your health has been going on improving. Mrs Marx (who is rather ailing) and Tussy send their best love to you. As I do not know where to find you, I send this letter at haphazard. Old Leblanc, who will leave London for Paris, is still woefully beset by his marriage-mania.
Yours most devotedly,
Karl Marx
161
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE[26]
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 21 April 1877 Dear Bracke,
On the sheet enclosed herewith I have again noted down for your benefit the most glaring of Kurz's mistakes.[194]
Months ago, when I ceased to correspond with her, I told Miss Kurz (1) that, being so short of time, I could at most only undertake to correct errors of fact such as might be made by any foreigner insufficiently au fait with French conditions — but not mere mistakes in translation.
Hence, if she does not proceed more carefully (I shall spare enough time for one or two more proof-sheets), you will have to find an expert corrector and deduct what you pay him from the translator's fee.
You should devise one footnote in which you say once and for all that all notes, unless expressly stated otherwise, are Lissagaray's own. By so doing you would save the cost of having to put 'A. d. V.'* several times on every page.
Your idea of disseminating a portrait of me taken from the caricature provided by Lachâtre[27] does not appeal to me in the least."
It is to be feared that Prussia has concluded a secret treaty with Russia; without such a treaty Russia could not invade Romania.[272]
The workers' press concerns itself too little with the oriental question, forgetting that the government's politics gamble wantonly with the lives and money of the people.
At all events, public opinion amongst the workers, petty bourgeoisie, etc., should be duly alerted long enough in advance to make things difficult for the Prussian government (in its plans e.g. to get Russia to cede a little bit of Poland or to indemnify itself at Austria's expense), should it attempt to involve Germany in the war on Russia's behalf or so much as put pressure on Austria to that end.
With kindest regards,
Yours,
K. M.
ad p. 17, Mandat tacite, the gracious lady translates this as 'silent mandate', which is nonsense; the term 'unspoken' agreements is used in German, to be sure, but never silent ones. But in the same sentence 'démarche de Ferrières', meaning Jules Favre's journey to Ferneres, where Bismarck was, is translated as 'Ferrière's de-marche', thus changing Ferrières the place into a personl
ad p. 18, she has omitted the place-name from battle 'of Chevilly'.
ibid. 'Trochu ... lui fit une belle Conférence'. This she translates 'read him a fine lecture', a literal schoolroom rendering which, however, makes no sense in the German.
ad p. 20, l'Hôtel de Ville she translates as 'town house'; what is meant is the September government which was housed in the 'Hôtel de Ville'.
ibid, à ce lancé, another rendering that smacks strongly of the schoolroom: 'at this throw there came a roar from the whole rabble'. What on earth does the German mean — at this throw (which?) there came a roar, etc.? Lancé should here be translated as 'virulent cry'.
ibid. 'D'autres tocsins éclatent' is translated 'new' (why not old?) 'tocsins were pulled (!)'—What is meant is that more distress was being ventilated. The very word 'éclatent',b not to mention the whole context, should have shown her what nonsense she was writing.
p. 25 Miss Kurz changed what the text calls the 'Cordeliers'[275] of the old French Revolution into the latter's non-existent 'Francis-cans'. Not content with that she changes 'le prolétariat de la petite bourgeoisie'—the proletariat of the petty bourgeoisie — into 'the proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie'. Sheer carelessness, this!
ad p. 26, contre-maîtres she translates as 'senior boatswains', whereas here it means foremen, while chefs d'ateliers are captains of industry.
ad. p. 30, 'Paris capitulait avant le 15 sans l'irritation des patriotes'. Kurz translates this as 'Paris capitulated before the 15th, without exacerbation on the patriots' part', which would be correct if the original read:
'Paris capitulait etc. sans irritation de la part des patriotes' (instead of what it actually says: 'sans l'irritation des patriotes').
Hence, what is meant is precisely the opposite, namely: 'Had it not been for the exacerbation of the patriots, Paris would have capitulated before the 15th.'
What is patently at fault here — the sentence is a very simple one — is once again the most unpardonable carelessness.
ad. p. 32, 'Jules Favre demandait à Trochu sa démission'. Kurz translates this as: 'Jules Favre demanded his dismissal of Trochu.' Since a man does not dismiss himself from office, but is dismissed by his superiors, this sentence could only mean that Jules Favre wished to be dismissed from office by Trochu. In fact, however, Jules Favre demanded his (Trochu's) resignation of Trochu which is, indeed, the literal rendering of 'démission'.
163. Engels to B. Lindheimer. 21 April
162. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 21 April[267]
My dear Friend,
We shall expect you tomorrow (Sunday) for dinner (2 o'clock). In great haste, and with regards from Mrs Marx,
Yours,
K. M.
163
ENGELS TO B. LINDHEIMER
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London,] 21 April 1877
To Mr B. Lindheimer
The last time you came and saw me, I categorically told you that I could not let you have more than the £ 1 1 had advanced you, and you yourself declared that this went without saying. I am all the less prepared to go back on this in that, according to your own story, you could at any time obtain money from your friends in the CITY, were it not for your reluctance to approach them to this effect. But if the position be viewed in its proper perspective, it cannot possibly be harder for you to approach these friends of yours, who know you and your circumstances and to whom you were recommended, than myself who is as much a stranger to you as you are to me. In any case, I cannot spare you this step,
164. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 23 April
having already more than enough to do lending an occasional helping hand to party comrades who have no one in the CITY from whom they might obtain advances, and I would ask you politely but unequivocally to regard this as my final word. I am, Sir, etc.
E.
164
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 23 April 1877
(BIRTHDAY OF SHAKESPEARE)
My dear Friend,
On my daughter Tussy's behalf I am sending you a ticket (for two people) for the STALLS at the Lyceum Theatre? It is for today's (Monday's) performance. The play is Richard HI." It would be as well if you were to get there a little after seven o'clock.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
165. Engels to Wilhelm Bracke. 24 April
165
ENGELS TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
London, 24 April 1877
Dear Bracke,
It is hardly likely that you will get the photographic plate from Paris since Lachâtre is in exile and his business has been sequestrated by the government; the publishing house is being administered by an arch-reactionary(1) who is doing all he can to ruin it.[38] For that matter, the portrait is a rotten one and Marx quite unrecognisable[271]; if you like, we can send you a better photograph. I shall be glad to write the biography for you. Tell me how many Kalender pages you'd like at most and at least, so that I know how much space I can take up, ditto the delivery date.[275]
The three stenographic reports received with thanks[276]; a pity your subject was not a better one; if one is constantly compelled to cite witnesses who provisionally withhold their names, one is in a poor position. But all the same, the purpose has been achieved since a favourable vote in that company is, presumably, out of the question.[277] Bebel's speech is excellent — lucid, matter-of-fact and to the point.[278]
I should never have suspected any kind of Diihringian influence had Liebknecht told me the plain truth and promised me redress.b
There was a definite agreement that an article should appear every week[155]; when I complained that it was not being adhered to, Liebknecht kept me waiting for ten days or more and during that time, despite his presence in Leipzig, there was no sign of rectification; finally he wrote and told me that I should spare him unnecessary objurgations — that was all, not a word about any future redress. Now, since I had no idea what influence other people might have over the editorial board, the only course open to me was to assume the above and, by means of an ultimatum, compel Liebknecht to keep his promises. I have written and told him he may, if he wishes, show the relevant letters from me to anyone he chooses, and hence, so far as I am concerned, they are at your disposal. Over here people are literally overwhelming me with reproaches on the grounds that J have allowed the articles to be printed as mere stop-gaps so that no one could follow the thread. And when you consider it is now at least the sixth time that this tale has recurred, that I have been given the finest and most unequivocal promises, only to see, without fail, the very opposite happen, you will realise that in the end one grows sick of it.
So the Russians are in Bucharest.[272] I trust the Turks will at once occupy all their Danubian fortresses in the locality facing the Romanian bank and turn them into bridgeheads. In particular Calafat (Vidin), Giurgevo (Rustchuk) and Calarashi (Silistria).[3]
That would force the Russians to lay siege to these fortresses on both banks, i.e. beleaguer them with twice the number of troops, thereby losing a great deal of time. But with every soldier the Russians have to leave behind in Romania, it will become easier for the Turks to meet them in the open field and prevent them from taking the fortresses. I likewise trust that Abdul Kerim will, as promised, send 20,000 Circassians to Romania to destroy the railways and do some thorough foraging. All honour to Straus-berg for constructing the Romanian railways with such splendid ineptitude that they are already letting the Russians down.
Re trade regulations. Cross, the Home Secretary here, has brought in a BILL whereby all the many and sometimes conflicting laws governing the limitation of working hours are to be brought together within a single act[279] and thus become enforceable for the first time. I will try and get hold of the thing and send it to you or Liebknecht so that the liberal jackasses may see for once what a Conservative minister has the nerve to do in that line over here.
Time for the post and for a meal. Regards to all our friends.
Yours,
F. E.
167. Engels to B. Lindheimer. 3 or 4 May
166. Engels to B. Lindheimer. 26 April[2 8 0]
To Mr B. Lindheimer
The tales you first told me about your relations and your contacts in the CITY are so completely at variance with everything you now say that I regret I shall be unable in future to place any faith in your words. The fact that your relations are reluctant so much as to entrust you with money for your journey and that your supposed friends in the CITY merely refer you to the German society is even less calculated to inspire me with confidence. I do not know the party members you invoke,[3] nor if I did would their general testimony signify much in the face of such facts. Hence I regret that I can do nothing further for you in this matter.
Faithfully
167
ENGELS T O B. L I N D H E I M E R
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London, 3 or 4 May 1877]
It is indeed incomprehensible to me why I, of all people, should be called upon to pay your travelling expenses. You yourself must have known what was the extent of your means and when the time
168. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 26 May
had come to go home, for you came over here on the off chance and not as a working man at that. You let the time go by and then approached me, a total stranger, for help. You did not produce a single document relating either to your character or your position, for a party card does not serve the purpose of vouching for its holder. Your tales about your position and acquaintances blatantly contradict what you were subsequently obliged to tell me. Finally you attempt to force me to receive you at my house by behaviour which compels me to close my doors to you.
If I nevertheless send you a postal order on GOWER STREET OFFICE for the £1 in question, I do so simply with a view to giving you one last chance to prove that you are deserving of better treatment than that which you have hitherto forced me to mete out to you. Kindly acknowledge receipt.
Faithfully
168
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 26 May 1877
Dear Bracke,
What Miss Kurz has been awaiting has today gone off from London. In the course of next week she will (save, I think, for the appendix) be getting everything in the way of alterations which Lissagaray still has to send her.[194]
For the rest I should like to point out that:
1. La Kurz should have sent you, as a matter of course, anything in manuscript form she had received from Lissagaray, along with her own manuscript. Considering the masterly way she translates (see just a few recent examples overleaf), how can I keep a check on her without Lissagaray's ms.? I am convinced that, because of this, all manner of infelicities have already crept in.
2. She might very well have told herself that Lissagaray requires this ms. for his own second French edition.
All in all, the translation, when not actually wrong, is often unhelpful, philistine and wooden. But this may, perhaps, to some extent correspond to German taste. With kind regards,
Yours,
K. M.
I should be grateful if you would insist that the said Kurz should, firstly, send you (for return to Lissagaray) that part of Lissagaray's ms. she has already translated (you can pass it on to me together with the proofs) and, secondly, always enclose with her own manuscript the manuscript she has just translated so that I may compare translation and original. All in all this additional manuscript does not amount to very much.
The passage heavily scored by me on p. 73 should read thus:
'It [the people] looked for this emancipation to the autonomous Commune which,etc., etc., would conduct its administration independently, within the limits required to maintain national unity. Rather than the representative who may,etc., should, etc., it opposed to that monarchical excrescence of society, the "State", which, etc., undermines, etc., represents particular class interests which, etc., the delegation of communes endowed with a life of their own which, etc., was to administer the general national interests.'
Examples
p. 49 'A l'appel de son nom il a voulu répondre' Miss Kurz translates as: 'He wanted to respond to the summons issued to him.' Sheer rubbish! It means: 'He wished to answer when his name was called, etc'
{ditto 'les yeux ... brillants de foi républicaine'; foi does not here mean 'troth'—nor does it ever mean that, save in the sense of 'upon my troth!' (ma foi)—but faith, conviction, etc. I have left it as it stands since I am generally averse to all such commonplaces in German; so what matter if she puts an X for a U.}
p. 51 'des intrigants bourgeois qui couraient après la deputation'. Kurz translates 'who ran after the deputation'. A primary school child could hardly translate worse.
p. 51 'pour statuer en cas de doubles nominations' Kurz translates outrageously 'so as, if need be,' (what's that supposed to mean?) 'to decree double nominations'!!! Should read: 'so as to decide in the case of double nominations'.
169. Engels to Marx. 27 May
p. 54 'une permanence' is translated as 'permanent session' (what the devil is that?). Means 'standing committee'.
p. 59 instead of 'expired bills of exchange' she puts 'expired merchandise' (III).
p. 70 'l'intelligence etc. de la bourgeoisie de cette époque' she translates as 'the big bourgeois of this point of time' (!). An epoch is no more a point of time than a line is a point in space.
p. 75 'C'est que la première note est juste' she translates as: 'The reason was that the first account (!) was correct', should read, that from the start they had struck or hit the right note.
p. 90 'plumitifs'—'quill-pushers' she translates as legal recordslll
169
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Brighton, 27 May 1877 42 King's Road
Dear Moor,
My obstinate .silence must have surprised you. I've had a damned awful week with my eye: the bright sunlight has done it no good. I have been wearing spectacles all day for a week now and given alcohol the sack, but experienced no improvement at all to begin with. Only since yesterday has there been any definite change, inasmuch as I am no longer aware of my eye. When I come up to London [249] (Friday(1)) I shall definitely put paid to the thing; I'm sick of a condition which prevents me doing anything at all.
The stupid English papers carry tales of the enormous advances made by the Russians in Armenia[281] of which, so far, there have been very few. But unless the softas in Constantinople soon bestir themselves,[282] Muhtar Pasha may wreak considerable havoc.— It's characteristic of the way the war is being conducted on the Danube that the Tsara has to put in an appearance before anything is done. For the rest, the administration of the Russian army would actually seem to have been better so far than might have been expected; however, we shall see how things go when the real campaign begins. But the decision lies with Constantinople and is now becoming an urgent necessity.
Monsieur Mac-Mahon, too, seems to have gone off the rails with his coup de tête.b28s It is not proving attractive, nor, despite all efforts, will the Bourse really swallow the bait. Moreover his avowed intention of remaining within the bounds of legality is evidence that the results are not consistent with the promises made by Broglie & Co. If the French stand firm this time and vote properly, or at any rate no worse than last time, they may well be quit of this kind of reaction once and for all. The course things are taking shows that this <oup does not envisage the use of force and, even if there was a subsequent attempt in that direction, it would probably misfire. A coup d'état cannot, like a bill of exchange, be fixed up at three months' date. Nor, come to that, is Broglie a man of blood, but rather a parliamentary intriguer who will certainly miss the right moment, even if Mac-Mahon's scruples and vacillations had not made this a virtual certainty from the start. Enfin,0 the affair is taking an exceedingly favourable course, and if the electors allow the prefects, etc., to treat them like enfranchised cattle on this occasion, they will only be getting their deserts; but it doesn't look as though they will. What luck for that old swine Thiers if Mac-Mahon presents an ultimatum— favourable elections or else I resign! Idiot!
Your
F. E.
170. Marx to Engels. 31 May
170
MARX T O ENGELS
IN BRIGHTON
[London,] 31 May 1877
Dear Engels,
I hope that your eyes are better. Madame Lormier, whose eye trouble got worse day by day and became really serious, was sent by Madame Longuet SENIOR a little jar of ointment (said to cost no less than 30 francs), a very small quantity of which completely cured her—mirabile dictu*—within a few days. There is no disputing that FACT. T h e ointment enjoys considerable repute in France and, by smelling, observing it, etc., you will doubtless discover what the main ingredient is.
So closely do your views on the STATE IN TURKEY agree with my own that I had said literally almost the same thing to Wroblewski.
But the crisis is not far off. Damad Mahmud and Co. who are u n d e r the direct influence of Russia, are apparently much inclined to conclude peace with the Russians, one of the terms being, of course (as indeed recommended by The Times, in the same n u m b e r in which that paper raps Mac-Mahon over the knuckles for his anti-constitutionalismb), the abolition of the constitution. Nothing could be more opportune for the Tsar c; hitherto all that has taken place has been in the nature of a preliminary military parade; Russian victories in Asia Minor [2 8 1] have been overrated and overstated for various reasons (apart from BLOODY IGNORANCE) by the various parties; financial constraint as such is as yet in its infancy; the Caucasian malady is as yet no more than sporadic [2 8 4]; for the present the Tsar might get off with a succès d'estime and without constitutional constraint, and might in his turn have an important part to play in the occidental crisis, etc., etc. Midhat Pasha, I AM TOLD, DOES EVERYTHING FROM HERE TO PUSH THE MOVEMENT AT CONSTANTINOPLE ON WHICH, IN FACT, THE FATE OF TURKEY (AND THE IMMEDIATE PROSPECTS OF RUSSIAN 'DEVELOPMENT') DEPEND.
In France we are beginning to see what I have long in vain been telling Lissagaray (who is now again taking too rosy a view), namely that the really industrial and commercial bourgeoisie is becoming republican, as indeed events EVEN SINCE THIERS' RÉGIME have clearly shown, and that the 'hommes de combat'[3] do not represent a particular class, but only the beaux restesh of the former parties' PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS. The workers (in Paris) have taken for their watchword que c'est cette fois l'affaire de Messieurs les bourgeoise Hence they are holding back.
From the enclosed cutting from the Marseillaise you will see how Mac-Mahon is being treated by the radical journals. The sagacious
République Française tells him that the question can be decided only by his resignation; Emile de Girardin threatens him with IMPEACHMENT and, of all the papers, the Siècle, the épicier^ paper par excellence, treats him with the greatest ruthlessness.
Meanwhile the Bonapartists are insistent. Too late in the day to draw the sword (apart from the fact that it's not in Brogue's LINE). But (after the Chamber has been further prorogued) there might be an attempt to institute an état de siège"—illegal, it is true, but covered by the ministers' responsabilité légale* and Mac-Mahon's
irresponsabilité constitutionelle.gi 3 Such a course, which is being urged by the Bonapartists at least, might yet give rise to violent clashes. It's a possibility, if an unlikely one.
Collet, as in duty bound, has informed me of Urquhart's death. My own constitution, while not exceptionally flourishing, is pretty fair compared with what it usually is about this time of year. My wife is getting better.
The weaning of the little chaph (the Irishwoman is still with us in the meantime) has gone smoothly, but he evinces a dangerous passion for crawling up the stairs instead of round the drawing-room.
Warmest regards from one family to the other.
Your
K. M.
171. Engels to Wilhelm Bracke. 25 June
171
ENGELS T O W I L H E L M BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
London, 25 June 1877
Dear Bracke,
Many thanks for your remittance of £15.1.2. in payment of interest which has been credited to you with thanks.
You should simply transfer the fee of 30 marks[285] to your election fund, if only by way of a sop to the man's conscience.
As for the next Kalender,[3] let us wait a bit before deciding what to do. After all, there's almost a year to go.
The beginning of Dühring, 'Political Economy',[155] goes off to Leipzig today. Liebknecht maintains that the congress resolution in no way affects my articles. I can only assume the same since the congress is not, after all, empowered to make arbitrary use of my articles or, without my consent, to relieve Liebknecht of the commitment he entered into vis-à-vis myself on the strength of a resolution adopted by last year's congress.[286]
You really are a martyr to ill-health. One might almost think that Brunswick had a dreadfully unwholesome climate. Gout, rheumatism, measles and an unknown complaint into the bargain — it's truly horrifying! I hope that all will end well.
What a wretched, petty-minded creature that Helmholtz must be so much as to let himself be irritated by the remarks of a Dühring, let alone be irritated to the extent of confronting the Berlin faculty with the alternative: either Dühring goes or I go![287] As though all that Dühring has written, rabidly envious as it is, was of any more consequence to science than a fart! But admittedly Helmholtz, though a quite outstanding experimentalist, is no whit superior to Dühring as a thinker. And then again, a German professorship — particularly in Berlin — is the top of German petty-bourgeois philistinism and provincialism. Where else could a man of, for example, Virchow's scientific repute set his highest sights on — becoming a town councillor!
You will yet be surprised at the kind of stuff the Turks are made of. If only we had in Germany a parliament such as that in Constantinople! So long as the mass of the people — in this case the Turkish peasant and even the Turkish middle landowner— remains sound, and sound he is, an oriental polity such as this is capable of withstanding a quite incredible amount of buffeting. Any other nation would have been destroyed by four hundred years of metropolitan corruption, a legacy from thé Byzantines; all the Turks need do to be a complete match for Russia is slough off the topmost layer. Treachery, venality on the part of army leaders and commandants of fortresses, the squandering of money destined for the army, defalcation of all kinds, everything that would ruin any other state, is to be found in abundance in Turkey, but not in such abundance as to effect its ruin. The only danger for the Turks lies in the meddling of European diplomats, notably the English who are restraining the Turks from making uninhibited use of their military resources and expect them to put up with the most unheard-of provocation. Thus when, for instance, the Romanians let the Russians into their country,[272] the Turks were supposed to regard this as an act of neutrality and neither to occupy nor to consolidate the bridgeheads of their fortresses on Wallachian territory"—not on your life! That would infringe Romania's neutrality! And the Turks were good-natured enough to comply with this English and Austrian claptrap and thus reduce the defensive qualities of their Danubian fortifications by more than half!
The crossing of the Danube by the Russians at Matshin, which I foretold in conversation with Marx as much as three weeks ago, is an admission of their inability to force a crossing where it would have been of some use, namely above the Dobrudja.[288] The Russians will have to send at least two or three army corps through the Dobrudja if they want to carry the Chernavoda-Küstendb positions — how they propose to supply them and how many will reach their destination, I should dearly like to know. This action has been forced upon the Russians by the defeat of the Montenegrins [176] which they could not allow to happen without doing something about it. No doubt the campaign will now get under way, and the Russians are faced with the choice of sending as many troops across the Danube as military necessity demands but they will be unable to feed them, or of sending fewer — no more than they can feed,—whereupon the campaign will soon come to a halt. Nevertheless, the immediate future will probably
172. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 2 July
see a rash of Russian victories on the Danube — none of which will be of the least significance.
Kindest regards from your
F. E.
172
ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT
IN LEIPZIG
London, 2 July 1877
Dear Liebknecht,
You would have spared both of us a great deal of unnecessary annoyance had you at once informed me of the simple fact that the supplement would actually be appearing now, and that you were going to publish my articles in it. From your earlier letters I could only assume that the supplement could not appear before October and had, moreover, already been incorporated into the review" scheduled to come out at that time; hence I could only assume that, despite the resolution, you proposed to print the sequel to the article in the main body of the Vorwärts. Hence my many misgivings — all too justified in the event.
I have sent Ramm three articles and am today taking the precaution of writing to him again to say that he can go ahead with their publication in the supplement. A fourth article is finished and I am working on a fifth. Unfortunately there are all manner of lets and hindrances; the day after tomorrow I have to go to Manchester for a few days, and after that, my wife being unwell, to the seaside[289] where, however, I shall nevertheless be able to do a few hours' work every day.
As regards Urquhart, we have taken steps to get the material together.[290] The round of trials and/or sentencings seems to be getting even merrier over there.[291] You ought to amend the penal code so that you can spend your nights in jug — or more precisely your prison cot — and be at large during the day.
It seems to us that the Vorwärts is taking the business in France a trifle too lightly.[292] True, it's no immediate concern of the workers and they know it and say: à vous maintenant, MM. les
bourgeois, faites votre jeu!(2) All the same, it's of the utmost importance to future developments in France that the present lull before the next workers' movement should occur under the régime of a bourgeois republic when Gambetta & Co. would discredit themselves, rather than, as hitherto, under imperial pressure when they would regain their popularity and, on the day of action, assume the leadership again; that the squabbling over forms of government, now meaningless in France, should finally cease, and the republic appear for what it is — the classical form of bourgeois rule and simultaneously that of its impending dissolution. Come to that, you'd damned well know it in Germany if reaction were to be victorious in France.[293]
So far all has gone well on the Danube. An oriental army like that of the Turks, unfit for use in big strategical operations, could not possibly prevent the Russians from crossing.[294] But this is compensated by the fact that an oriental army of this kind is never the victim of its own stupidity. We shall now see how the Russians propose to feed their army in Bulgaria. With every step they advance their difficulties mount up in geometrical progression and the peculiar performance under fire of the best they have — the Caucasian army in Armenia — does not augur well for them. Meanwhile Montenegro is being reduced to pulp. I'm particularly glad for G. Rasch's sake.[295]
Your
F. E.
173. Engels to Marx. 15 July
173
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Ramsgate, 15 July 1877 2 Adelaide Gardens
Dear Moor,
We have been installed here since Wednesday,[289] but this time, alas, the effect of the sea air has not been as rapid in my wife's case as we hoped; she can't quite get her appetite back. In my case, on the other hand, the aftermath of the excursion to Manchester is already 'out of sight, out of mind'.
The enclosed letter has been forwarded to me along with one from the selfsame Wiede[296] (who thus must obviously be someone other than our merry little hunchback[3]). Write and tell me what you say to the worthy fellow so that we proceed unisono.
The first proof of the 'Political Economy' is already here.[297]
Sheet 6 of the 'Philosophy', from which 29 lines were omitted, is being reprinted; let's hope there is no further unpleasantness in store.[298]
I still find the collapse of the Russians in Asia somewhat inexplicable. The Caucasian army has a strength of 8 divisions à
16 battalions, i.e. 128 battalions of the line (apart from riflemen, garrison troops and new formations), but Loris-Melikov is said to have only 40-50 batts in all just now. If we estimate the flying columns near Batum and Bayazid[6] at a further 30 batts (certainly too high), there remain 50-60 batts TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR. These must therefore have remained in the Caucasus to cover the lines of communication. If this assumption runs counter to the vainglori-ous claims originally made by the Russians, that is no reason for rejecting it. ANYHOW the landing at Sukhum-Kaleh — whatever its real and immediate results may have been — would appear fully to have succeeded in achieving the aim of tying up almost half the Caucasian army in the Caucasus proper.
In Bulgaria the Russians are apparently feeling their way for the time being, an easy enough task thanks to the purely passive resistance of the Turks (which has reduced the Kölnische Zeitung's Prussian lieutenants to utter despair). At all events they are, it
174. Marx to Engels. 18 July
seems, preparing to make a rapid thrust through the Balkans, either via Gabrovo-Kazanlyk or via Sofia-Philippopolis.(1) If they do so, and the Turkish government refuses to let itself be intimidated thereby, this 'most modern form of warfare' could end in disaster. To maintain three army corps in Thrace and keep them supplied with ammunition, etc., when you have no negotiable lines of communication to your rear, is a feat that may be the undoing of even the great Nikolai Nikolayevich.
The fact of the matter is that a few Europeans are necessary to the Turks. These people think in terms either of attack alone or defence alone. A combination of the two is beyond them. Like that Turkish major who said to the Kölnische Zeitung's lieutenant: You see all those Russians over there on the far side of the Danube?—Dammit, aren't your guns going to fire at them?— Yok, efendim, no Sir, but just let the Russians fire at us, and they'll see what sort of an answer we'll give them!—Meanwhile the Russians are setting up their batteries completely at their leisure. Had Silistria been defended like this in 1853, it would soon have fallen.[300]
Kindest regards from family to family,
Your
F. E.
174
MARX TO ENGELS[301]
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 18 July 1877
DEAR FRED,
First, as regards Wiede, I shall reply to him saying that in my present state of health I am not in a position (which is indeed the case) to interest myself in any periodical as a contributor.[296] It would certainly be very nice if a really scientific socialist periodical were to appear. This would provide an opportunity for criticism and counter-criticism in which theoretical points could be discussed by us and the total ignorance of professors and university lecturers exposed, thereby simultaneously disabusing the minds of the GENERAL PUBLIC — workers and bourgeois alike. But Wiede's periodical[3] cannot be other than SHAM-SCIENTIFIC; those same semi-educated louts and semi-informed literati, who infest the
Neue Welt, Vorwärts, etc., will perforce constitute the bulk of its contributors. In such company ruthlessness — the prime requirement in all criticism — becomes impossible; moreover, constant heed must be paid to comprehensibility, i.e. to presentation for the ignorant. Imagine a chemical periodical in which the reader's ignorance of chemistry is invariably taken for granted. And apart from all that, the way in which those who would perforce be Wiede's contributors have conducted themselves in the Dühring affair calls for the précaution of maintaining as much distance from these gentlemen as political party relations permit.[302] Their motto seems to be: Anyone who criticises his adversary by abusing him is a man of sensibility; but he who abuses an adversary by genuinely criticising him is an unworthy individual.
I trust that the Russians' impudent goings-on beyond the Balkans will stir up the Turks against their old regime. The fact that the Russian defeats in European Turkey are leading straight to revolution in Russia has now been made plain even to Lavrov and Lopatin by the outbursts in the Russian press following the FAILURES in Armenia, outbursts which no censorship could have suppressed. The tone of the Petersburg newspapers is more menacing than that of the German press at the time when the siege of Paris was not proceeding as expected.[13]
For a few days during the past week and the early part of this one, my insomnia and a correspondingly chaotic condition of the cranial nerves assumed serious dimensions. Yesterday it started to get better again.
With kindest regards from family to family
Your
Moor
175. Engels to Marx. 19 July
175
ENGELS TO MARX[49]
IN LONDON
Ramsgate, 19 July 1877 2 Adelaide Gardens Dear Moor,
I too shall write to Wiedea saying that, owing to lack of time, I can make no promises, let alone keep them. Unfortunately one cannot give the true, or rather intrinsic, reasons which you so rightly adduce. Besides — what do we know about Mr Wiede's ability to run a scientific review? Or even — on crucial occasions, of which surely there will shortly be more — about his reliability or merely his good will?
Herewith the latest from Wilhelm.b As regards the manuscript,[303]
all I told him in my reply was that I would send the letter to you.[15]
While in the cachot[02 1] he actually polished off three complete articles which appear in Nos. 80 and 81 of the Vorwärts? Pitiable prevarication, a splendid example of how he would paraphrase your 'Critique of the Programme', turning it into a glorification of the same. I rebuffed his request for an article on the war, saying I had no wish to compete for space in the Vorwärts with the worthy socialists of the future, or to give further cause for clamorous protests that I fill the paper with abstruse stuff of no interest to the bulk of the readers, who evidently prefer fantasy to fact.[286]
It's only a pity that our people in Germany have such lamentable opponents. If there were, on the bourgeois side, just one competent man with a knowledge of economics, he would soon put these gentlemen in their places and open their eyes to their own confusion. But what can be the upshot of a battle in which the only weapons on either side are commonplaces and philistian drivel! As a counterpart in Germany to the learned bourgeois noddle, a new German vulgar socialism is evolving that is a worthy successor to the old 'true socialism' of 1845.[304]
The Turks will have to hurry if the affair is to turn out satisfactorily. Should they allow the Russians in Bulgaria and on
176. Marx to Engels. 23 July
the southern slopes of the Balkans to establish a quadrilateral of Russian fortresses,[305] the situation might become chronic there, and in that case a thrust towards Constantinople would not be impossible, i.e. one having an eye to the purely moral effect as in 1828 — or to treachery. And treachery would seem to be quite ON THE CARDS. That treachery there was at Nikopol — otherwise of no great importance after the Russian crossing — seems clear to me. Never before have 6,000 Turks, with a ditch and wall in front of them, surrendered without assault — except at Varna in 1828.[306] I get quite nervous, what with the newspapers arriving twice a day and bringing news of the Russians' activity and the unfailing inaction of the Turks; it was no worse than this even in 1828 when there was no Turkish army at all.
You really ought to go and see Gumpert and get him to give you something for your insomnia; he's still there and the TRIP will do you good. Don't let the thing go too far this time — I imagine you will be going to Karlsbad again in the middle of August, and until then you have a month which you would surely do better to spend in decent health. Things aren't going too well here either.[289]
Since yesterday, for no apparent reason, Lizzie has been extremely unwell; the magic powers of sea-bathing have failed her for the first time and I'm beginning to get seriously alarmed.
Kindest regards to your wife, Tussy and Lenchen as well as the Longuets and Lafargues and yourself from us all.
Your
F. E.
176
MARX TO ENGELS articles from Russia. Also, Volksfreund,* which seems to have become Mr Dühring's monitor. Collet's 'ENGLAND, ENEMY OF TURKEY', etc.
I had intended to pay you a two- or three-day visit in Ramsgate; a trip to see Gumpert would be pointless for I know BY HEART, both from him and from the Karlsbad doctors and professors, everything that medical science cannot do in this particular case. Besides, my insomnie is somewhat better. But un homme propose et l'autre dispose.* The other, in this instance, being Hirsch who has come to London for the express purpose of spending a week in my company. More about him and what he has told me in the course of this epistle. But tout d'abord," my plans for the immediate future.
I intend to leave shortly, if possible on 12th August, for Neuenahr[307] and not for Karlsbad, and this for the following reasons:
First, because of the expense: As you know, my wife suffers from serious digestive disturbances and, since I shall in any case be taking Tussy who has had another nasty attack, my wife would take great exception to being left behind. For the three of us plus luggage — if, for the sake of the cure one travels at one's leisure as I have several times done — the journey there and back would alone amount to £70. Moreover I long ago promised Lenchen,d
who is very much run down, to convey her to her home where she cannot live completely gratis. Moreover, the family has all sorts of purchases to make for the trip.
Secondly: In unguarded moments, the Karlsbad doctors have themselves told me that, if one didn't want to visit Karlsbad every year, Neuenahr might be beneficial as an intermezzo. Of course, they would rather one always went to Karlsbad. But it might be better even from the viewpoint of hygiene to make a change for once and take less potent waters, for variatio delectat corpus." Besides, my trouble is not so much my LIVER as the nervous upset occasioned by it. Hence, less potent waters, but of essentiellement the same composition.
Furthermore, there is one important matter I have always neglected because of the expense — the after-cure. In view of the greatly reduced travelling expenses and the fact that the house will be shut up (under Withers' care) for the duration of the cure, all these birds would be killed with one stone by exchanging Karlsbad for Neuenahr.
HENCE q.e.d. I hope you approve. Now for other matters — first of all Hirsch. He has turned out very well and has not been wasting his time. I tried him out, amongst other things, on the subject of French statistics and found him to be à la hauteur? He also gave me some very interesting information about the almost universal transformation of French industrial concerns into JOINT STOCK COMPANIES. In the first place, this was facilitated by legislation in the days of the Empire. In the second, the French are not partial to business, preferring whenever possible to live as rentiers. And to which end this form of business is, of course, A GODSEND.
According to Hirsch (and here he may be taking too rosy a view) the officers of the French Army, with the exception of those at the top, are republican. However that may be, it is a FACT and a typical one, that Galliffet (the incident with la Beaumont[308] really did take place, as Hirsch ascertained,according to further recherchesh) offered his services to Mr Gambetta in a letter written in his own hand, and that the self-same Galliffet, after the préfet of his garrison town had been dismissed by Broglie, called on the disgraced préfet, together with his general staff, to proffer his condolences. If these things occur in a dry tree, etc.c On the other hand, there is a widespread belief among the non-commissioned officers, largely consisting of new men, that Mac-Mahon got rid of the Chamber because it had put forward a series of proposals intended to improve the lot of non-commissioned officers.
Everything that happens at the Elysée[309] daily becomes common knowledge in Paris, for the Bonapartist tapageurs[6] who frequent the place cannot hold their tongues. Mac-Mahon is exceedingly embittered. The brute, whose first historic words were: J'y suis, j'y reste,'[310] his second being: C'est assez, is now uttering his last one. All he says from morn till night is: 'Merde!'s
Hirsch is furious with the Vorwärts over the Dühring business as well as 'Nieder mit der Republik!'.[292] He wrote an exceedingly brusque letter to the executive (Geib, etc.)[111] about both these. He, too, now realises that fusion has degraded the party, both in theory and in practice.
With reference to 'Nieder mit der Republik!', he remarked that the great Hasenclever as a Prussian soldier (probably a reservist or militia man) was at the gates of Paris at the time of the Commune, and hence has no reason to lay down the law in matters of principle.
He maintains that, at the time of the Prussian conflict,[311]
Hasenclever was editor of a progressist[312] paper in Krefeld,a sold it to an ultra-reactionary, and gravely compromised himself in the course of a lawsuit arising out of the sale. This, as Bracke himself told him, was known to Bracke and Co. when they appointed Hasenclever co-editor with Liebknecht of the Vorwärts.[195]
Liebknecht, MEANWHILE, est puni par où il a péché. The Lassallean gang is doing everything it can to harass and humiliate him. For instance, they reproach him with the pittance he is paid by the
Vorwärts, say his wife (with five children) doesn't need a maid, etc. They have, contrary to all party and journalistic practice, deliberately so organised things that Liebknecht has to go to jug for all articles,[291] even if written during his absence, thus in fact playing the same role on the Vorwärts as the man of straw on a French paper.
Next month Hirsch is leaving Paris for Berlin where he is going to take over the editorship of the lithographed party papers for a monthc and proposes to do so in such a way as to mortify the allied riffraff.
I enclose herewith a letter from the Zukunft, in case you have not also received one.[313] Send it back to me for answering.
What a nice piece of cunning on the part of 'citizen', 'thinker' and 'socialist of the future' Most. So a second fusion is planned; ourselves, combined with Mr Diihring, for he'll be there without fail; at the same time, our names under the editorship of Most and Co. will mean our swallowing all their infamies in public, and most gratefully at that! In which case I would infinitely sooner have obliged Wiede.[296] But I am obliged to Most for having given me the opportunity of tendering my refusal. These fellows imagine they are dealing with 'babes and sucklings'. Quelle impudence!d
I should say that the Russians have grossly miscalculated with their sabre-rattling; and when unsoldierly coups de tête" of this kind don't come off HERE AND THEN, their effect on their own army and the public is highly and miserably compromising, particularly so soon after the EXIT from Armenia.
177. Engels to Marx. 24 July
Friend Lopatin, it seems, has in the meantime again waxed unpatriotic.
I trust that your wife is feeling better. Salut to all.
Your
Moor
177
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Ramsgate, 24 July 1877
Dear Moor,
Newspapers, etc., received. Very many thanks. Your plan does at any rate have the advantage of killing quite a lot of birds with one stone; I can only hope that the chief one, your liver, won't suffer accordingly/ Still, with so many medical authorities in favour, there's not much one can really say against it from that viewpoint either. Who knows whether this time Neuenahr won't do you more good than Karlsbad?3C7 It's simply a lottery, espérons le mieux}[1] For essential needs enclosed CHEQUE for £101.3.7—the non-round sum is intentional! At all events you really ought to come here for a few days and bring Hirsch with you if it can be managed. The change of air will do you good. By the way, I had thought of coming up to London once again for a day before 12 August, but don't let yourself be put off by such uncertainties.
What Hirsch has to say about France is very encouraging, particularly just now, even when one allows for some exaggera-tion. It's excellent that he should be giving a good account of himself. High time that a few people, at least, gave a good account of themselves when so many are turning into fools and ragamuf-fins.
The Zukunft's estimable letter returned herewith. One in identical terms has been forwarded to me from London.[313]
I think my reply will be as follows: firstly, it's impossible to agree to contributes» to a scientific periodical with editors that are anonymous and contributors likewise unnamed. Congress resolutions, however unexceptionable they may be in the field of practical agitation, count for nothing in that of science, nor do they suffice to establish a periodical's scientific nature — something that cannot be decreed.[314] A socialist scientific periodical without a quite definite scientific line is an absurdity and, given the present epidemic in Germany of diverse and indefinite lines, there has so far been no guarantee whatsoever that the line to be adopted will suit us.— Secondly, however, after finishing the Dühring,[155] I shall have to confine myself to my own independent work and shan't therefore have the time. What do you think of it? There's no hurry.
You will see from the enclosed letter from Liebknecht, which I would like to have back so that I can answer it,(1) that Mr Dühring 'couldn't tarry till the hour of twelve had struck'b and has been the cause of his own undoing.[287] All this was, of course, the fruit of silly Wilhelm's sagacity, and such is his childish glee that he doesn't even notice how much 'the party' has been discredited as a result. What is one to do with people like these? On top of that the man is still quite proud of his articles on France in which he simply endorses Hasenclever's nonsense.[315] However we'd better wait and see whether all the jubilation over Dühring's downfall doesn't fizzle out again.
The Russian moves are extremely bold, but what good will they do anyone if the Turks' conduct of the war remains as it has been for the past four weeks? The right course was to march on the Russian flank with a combined force from Shumla and Rustchukc
and smite it. They now have the best pass in the Balkans (the Shipka) which they can easily hold and, according to today's news, the Turks are sending troops from Shumla via Jambolid to Rumelia in order to display themselves to the Russians there, instead of transferring the troops from Rumelia — the Adriano-ple(2) garrison excepted — to Shumla and attacking Sistova£ with all
178. Marx to Engels. 25 July
available forces. The Turkish leadership has clearly allowed itself to be intimidated and has blundered accordingly. Moreover, it has everywhere abandoned the now ripe harvest to the Russians who therefore have enough to eat. Abdul Kerim has allowed the Turkish army to run so much to seed that more than 20% are in hospital, while the Kölnische Zeitung's Prussian lieutenant says that in Shumla he saw crowds of Turkish officers (not men) drunk on spirits. And all as a result of inaction. It drives one wild to see such a magnificent position and such splendid fighting material go to waste like this. All the same the Russians won't get to Constantinople, nor will they find it so easy to deny even the Turks in the quadrilateral of fortresses[305] their supplies of food. Moreover, they have only two months left in which to force a decision and hence, despite all the follies of the Turks, this year's campaign has already as good as failed — were unpredictability not the rule out there! The despatch of British troops will probably be enough to prevent the Sultan[3] from concluding a separate peace, and that's what's good about it.
Lizzie is doing better. She went through a serious crisis on Sundayb and now seems to be gradually recovering.
Best wishes to everyone,
Your
F. E.
178
MARX TO ENGELS[145]
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 25 July 1877 DEAR FRED,
Best thanks for the billet doux.c
Another word about Neuenahr.[307] If one keeps going uninter-mittently to Karlsbad, one is forever staking one's last card. If, however, one has recourse to a less potent spa, there will always be a last resort should things take a turn for the worse. And one has to treat one's physique with as much diplomacy as everything else.
Herewith, ditto, an excerpt from Geib's letters to Hirsch. Hirsch regrets not having Liebknecht's letters with him because, he says, we should see from them that Liebknecht has been agitating vigorously against the Dühring clique for months. Liebknecht, it would seem, has to swallow a great deal of trouble which he conceals from us.
What do you think of the workers of the UNITED STATES? This, the first outbreak against the ASSOCIATED CAPITAL oligarchy that has arisen since the CIVIL WAR, will, of course, be suppressed, but may well provide a point of departure for the constitution of a serious workers' party in the UNITED STATES. There are two favourable circumstances on top of that. The policy of the new President[3] will turn the negroes, just as the big expropriations of land (EXACTLY OF THE FERTILE LAND) for the benefit of the RAILWAY, MINING, etc. companies will turn the peasants of the West — whose grumbling is already plainly audible — into militant allies of the workers. So there's a pretty fair storm brewing over there, and the transfer of the centre of the International to the UNITED STATES[317] may yet, post festum,h be presented with a quite exceptional opportunity.
You will recall that Challemel (I don't know how the name is spelt) de Lacourc wrote a caustic, perfectly insulting anti-Mac-Mahon article in the République Française in which, inter alia, he spoke of the 'blessure opportune',d failing which he [Mac-Mahon] would have been relegated to the same gloire-listee as the Frossards, Faillys, etc. Thereupon notification was given in the official papers that the République was to be prosecuted for this libellous article. But it wasn't and, as Hirsch says, for the following reason: the famous Stoffel, mortal enemy of Mac-Mahon who dismissed him from the army and with whom he had a tremendous row during Bazaine's trial,[47] called on Gambetta and offered, should the trial proceed, to give evidence about Mac-Mahon's EXPLOITS during the battle of Sedan.[113] This soon became known in the Elysée[30] and the prosecution was dropped.
Ad vocemc Broglie. As you know, he had discharged his debts in the first ordre moral government[318] but now once more found himself in difficulties, of which the whole of Paris was aware. He was waiting for the death of a very old and frail relative (stinking 25 1877
rich) in Switzerland, a Mrs von Staël (a relative of the famous VIRAGO3). This person died on 13 March 1877, leaving her whole fortune to a lady and — n o t a FARTHING to Brogue. Whereupon , like Dolleschall, h e said: 'Now it's a question of daily bread. Now I have nothing to count on!'
Your reply to the Berliners[13] would be seasonable. The fellows must be made to feel that, if one is long-ENDURiNG, one is also capable of digging one's heels in.
I shall see whether the TRIP with Hirsch can be arranged. c Today he is at the Crystal Palace,[319] which means that I'm unlikely to see him until tomorrow afternoon (since he writes his articles for the Vossische,d etc., in the mornings).
Salut.
Your
Moor
Sample of the 'great perspicacity' of the armchair socialists:
'Not even great perspicacity such as is at the command of Marx is able to solve the task of "reducing use values'" (the idiot forgets that the subject under discussion is 'commodities') 'i.e. vehicles for enjoyment, etc., to their opposite, to amounts of effort, to sacrifices etc' (The idiot believes that in equalising values I wish to 'reduce' use values to value.) 'That is to substitute a foreign element. The equation of disparate use values is only explicable by the reduction of the same to a common factor of use value.' (Why not simply to—weight?)
T h u s dixit' Mr Knies, the critical genius of professorial political economy.
Excerpts from letters from Geib to Hirsch.
1. Hamburg, dated 3.6.77 (Concerning the founding of the reviews): 'A comrade, Karl Höchberg, in Berlin' (in Hirsch's view a 'comrade' of the ILLUSTRIOUS Eugen Dühring), 'native of Frankfurt am Main, has undertaken to make the party an annual gift of 10,000 marks for literary purposes. Having thus been made independent, we resolved at Gotha to publish, as from 1 October, not only the Review but also a Social-Democratic news-letter—autographed — such as we had privately discussed the previous year at Gotha. You immediately sprang to mind as editor of both papers. The review is to come out twice a month and the news-letter two or three times; six times while the Reichstag is in session, etc.
'Höchberg, who has a degree and is about thirty years old, will help as required with the editing of the Review, but will not have any administrative say in it. The editor of both undertakings is to have an annual salary of 3,000 marks... Everyone I have asked so far is agreed that the editing could be entrusted to no better hands than yours.'
179. Engels to Franz Wiede. 25 July
2. Hamburg, 5.7.77: ...'The review will come out as from 1 October... Höchberg, who will probably approach you direct, will assist you with the editing of the review. This I envisage as follows: You either hand over to him, or make some arrangement with him about, certain departments which he is to administer, such as, e.g., philosophy, history, natural science. New books in this sphere will be discussed by Höchberg... If it transpires that you have to devote your entire attention to the news-letter, it will be easy to make some other arrangement. In this connection I would mention Dr Wiede, who is a keen party member, speaks and writes French, English and Italian, has travelled widely and was himself proposing to publish a socialist review in Zurich.[3] When he was here recently I dissuaded him from carrying out his plan, etc' (but to no effect!)
3. Hamburg, 18.7.77. '...You have definitely accepted so far as the news-letter is concerned' (i.e. Hirsch proposes to try the thing out for a month in August). ...'We have still not settled anything definite in respect of the review. As you have refused, we have latterly been engaged in verbal negotiations here with Höchberg. Here we had to consider the circumstances that the Leipzigers are all, to a man, opposed to the review's editorial board being composed solely of newcomers to the party. Everyone likes Höchberg well enough, but not Wiede. It is feared that a weak editorial board — and an unknown one might ultimately turn out to be weak — in Berlin might easily be led into Dühringian channels, thus sowing the seeds of fatal dissension within the party. Not that I myself take such a gloomy view of it, though in one respect I agree with all the rest, namely that in the first quarter the review must be co-edited and signed — in other words, launched — by a lettered man, a comrade known to the whole party. I believe that you could do this quite well...' (whereupon, however, Hirsch declares that he won't do it).
179
ENGELS TO FRANZ WIEDE
IN ZURICH
[Draft]
Dear Sir,
[Ramsgate, 25 July 1877]
Pray excuse me for, etc. Now, as regards my collaboration on your projected journal,[3] I can, unfortunately, promise you nothing definite at the moment.
180. Engels to Marx. 31 July
As soon as I have completed my critique of Diihring for the
Vorwärts,[155] I shall be obliged to concentrate my whole attention on a longer, independent work[16] which I have had in mind for years, one of the obstacles to its completion hitherto — aside from extraneous circumstances — having been my collaboration on socialist organs. When a man has totted up 56 years, he must finally make up his mind to take stock of his time so that something may finally come of his preliminary labours. Should an isolated case occur in which I again deemed it necessary to cast my vote in public, it would depend on the circumstances where this should be done, whether in the Vorwärts or elsewhere, and in this latter case I should, among all the various 'scientific journals' now being projected, be happy, in so far as I can now predict, to turn to yours first. If, therefore, I feel unable to make any firmer promise today, I would beg you to ascribe this solely to the reasons adduced above, and in no way to a want of sympathy for a journal which greatly interests me, to which I wish all prosperity and to which I have already subscribed through my bookseller.
I am, Sir, etc.
180
ENGELS TO MARX[320]
IN LONDON
[Ramsgate,] 31 July 1877 2 Adelaide Gardens
Dear Moor,
Just a couple of lines in great haste enclosing letter from W. Liebknecht which might perhaps influence your reply to the Zukunft[321] I haven't yet sent a straight answer, but have written to Liebknecht about the oddity of expecting us to entrust our manuscripts to totally anonymous persons because a congress has conferred a scientific character on them.[3]'[4] I further told him that I would write articles only in exceptional cases and when I myself considered it imperative.[3]
Wilhelm himself obviously doesn't know how things stand— otherwise he couldn't have made such a howler about Wiede. A fine way of setting up a scientific journal! Anyhow, it's a good thing there isn't any Dühringianism.
I was delighted by the business of the strike in America.[316] The way they throw themselves into the movement has no equivalent on this side of the ocean. Only twelve years since slavery was abolished and already the movement has got to such a pitch!
Kniesh is capital. Dühring, too, concerning whom you have again hit the nail on the head. What he ultimately says, in fact,— translated from confusion into economics — is that value is determined by wages.c
Doubtless one will have to resign oneself to the Russians remaining between the Balkans and the Danube until the autumn. The Turks have allowed a very large proportion of their regular troops to succumb for want of proper provisioning during the fighting in Serbia and Montenegro,[17] and Abdul Kerim has done his best to finish off the rest. I doubt whether Mehemet Ali has more than 50,000 men capable of an offensive; Osman Pasha will have some 25,000 and another 25,000 south of the Balkans; that would seem to be all, the remainder being untrained militia of no use in the field. Provided the Turkish government doesn't now conclude a premature peace, the Russians will not get to Constantinople this year, but probably cross the Danube again in November and, not having yet made any impression on the fortresses which — barring accidents — are therefore likely to continue secure throughout this campaign, they can start from the beginning again in the spring — if at all.
The wretched Standard correspondent in Constantinople is, at Layard's behest, disseminating alarmist rumours in order that the English fleet may be imposed on the Turks.
Your
F. E.
181. Engels to Natalie Liebknecht. 31 July
181
ENGELS TO NATALIE LIEBKNECHT
IN LEIPZIG
Ramsgate, 31 July 1877 2 Adelaide Gardens Dear Mrs Liebknecht,
May I request you to arrange at your convenience for this note[3]
to reach your husband safely? With any luck you will shortly be relieved of labours of this kind and, I hope, for some considerable time.[322] The wives of our friends in Germany have to play their part in the struggle which their husbands are actively waging, and to play it in a manner which would come as a surprise to our wives here, in the security of England. It's all very well for us here to talk and criticise, when in Germany any thoughtless or ill-considered word may entail imprisonment and the temporary disruption of family life. Fortunately our German women do not allow themselves to be deterred by this and prove by their deeds that the sickly sentimentality of which one hears so much is just a class affliction peculiar to bourgeois women.
With warm regards to you and your children,
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
182. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 31 July
Have received your two letters of 21 and 28. I can only hope that the Dühringian fiasco is over for good and that things won't be patched up again. The fact remains that those party organs which allowed themselves to be misled into according him scientific importance simply because of his harassment by the Prussians (!) have made asses of themselves. And that means all the ones I have seen.[287]
Vahlteich certainly made the remark about Marxians and Dühringians; immediately after the congress it appeared in all the papers that published his speech at the public meeting (where it was perpetrated).[323] Nor do I think he would repudiate it. The fact that he is now doing time seems to me no reason for making him out to be better than he is.
Elisée Reclus is a mere compiler and nothing more. Since he and his brother[3] were co-founders of the secret Alliance,[201]
he could, if he would, give you more inside information than you could give him. Whether or not he belongs to your little lot makes no difference at all; politically he is muddle-headed and impotent.
I never said that the bulk of your people didn't want real science. I was speaking[15] of the party, and that's whatever it makes itself out to be before the public, in the press and at congresses. And there the order of the day is semi-literacy and your ex-worker dolling himself up as a man of letters. If, as you say, these people amount to no more than a tiny minority, then obviously the only reason you and the others have to pay any heed to them is that each of them has his supporters. The moral and intellectual decline of the party dates from the unification[71] and could have been avoided had a little more caution and intelligence been shown at the time. Much can ultimately be sweated out by a healthy party, but it is a long and arduous process and the health of the masses is certainly not an adequate reason for injecting them unnecessarily with a disease.
As regards the Zukunft, it's lucky that your letter reached me in time to prevent my sending the reply I had already decided to make to the invitation that I should contribute.[321] An invitation from completely anonymous editors who can proffer no better scientific credentials than a resolution in congress, as though a congress could confer a scientific character upon anything![314]
What presumption, that we should entrust our manuscripts to completely anonymous people who might very well be the most arrant Dühringians!
You say that Wiede is a co-editor. But as recently as the 20th
183. Marx to Engels. 1 August
inst.a he himself invited me to work for a reviewb he was proposing to found in Zurich]
In short, I am sick of this muddle, this perpetual embarking on hare-brained and over-precipitate schemes. If only because of the necessity of my now finishing off, at long last, my own, lengthier works, I cannot at present enter into any agreements whatsoever. I shall complete the 'Dühring',[155] after which I shall write articles only when I myself consider it to be imperative and, were there to be a journal that was not a party organ, I would choose it for preference rather than remain at the mercy of congressional debates.[286] When all is said and done, there is no democratic forum for scientific works, and I don't want a repetition of my earlier experience.
You ought to go to Ghent[324] and come on to London from there; we certainly shan't be going to Ghent, otherwise why should we have withdrawn from practical participation at The Hague[20]? You would be able to reach London quickly and very cheaply via Antwerp, and there'll always be a room ready for you at my house.
I have got to close as the table is being laid.
Your
F. E.
183
MARX TO ENGELS[52]
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 1 August 1877
DEAR FRED,
Herewith letter from Höchberg to Hirsch who went back to Paris on Saturday.0 Kindly return the letter after reading it, as I have got to let Hirsch have it back.
Höchberg's letter, I believe, gives a better idea of the man than anything that Liebknecht says (the latter again distinguishing himself by recommending addle-pated Acollas and that faiseur* Lacroix) or might say about him. Höchberg is the first man to buy his way into the party — with the best of intentions as I think — and seek to reshape it in his image. Evidently he has little if any knowledge of the personal standing of party members and writers 'abroad', whom he proposes to gather about him as an 'international' group. He takes au sérieux* the worthy B. Malon who was rejected even by the Liberté belgec as a superficial hack. As regards
Elisée Reclus, the Protestant pastor's son, he should at least have known that he and his brother Polluxd are the 'souls' (to use the words of one who formerly inspired our Neue Rheinische Zeitung[325]) of the Swiss journal Le Travailleur[326] (other contributors being Zhukovsky, Lefrançais, Razoua et tutti quantie) wherein, if in a more jesuitically refined form than is at the unfortunate Guillaume's command, war without quarter is being waged against the German workers' movement, its leaders in particular (not, of course, that Liebknecht, etc., are named) being denounced as people who — do nothing at the workers' expense, but rather hamper the movement and sap the strength of the proletariat in mock fighting and parliamentary intrigues. And in gratitude for this, Höchberg proposes to invite his collaboration from Berlin.
That cheery little hunchback Wedde TURNED UP a few days since, only to disappear to Germany again a short while after. He had an urgent mandate from Geib, namely to recruit you and me for the Zukunft[313] Much to his chagrin, I made absolutely no secret either of our intention to abstain, or of the reasons for it, and at the same time intimated that, should time and circumstances again permit propagandist activity on our part, we would, as internation-als, in no way feel bound by duty or sentiment to associate ourselves with Germany, our beloved fatherland.'
In Hamburg he had seen Dr Höchberg and ditto Wiede; the latter, he thought, had more than a touch of your Berliner's flippancy and arrogance; the former he liked, though finding him still very much prone to 'modern mythology'. For during the little chap's (Wedde's) first visit to London, I used the expression 'modern mythology' to describe the renewed ascendancy of the goddesses of 'Justice, Liberty, Equality', etc., and this made a profound impression on one who had himself done much in the service of these superior beings. Höchberg seemed to him to be tainted with Dühringianism, and he has a sharper nose than Liebknecht.
You will have received the Mehring.[3] Today I am also sending you a little anti-Treitschke pamphletb which, while most boringly and superficially written, nevertheless has some points of interest.
The main trouble with Turkey is — the old story with all absolute monarchies. The Seraglio party — which is also Russian, just as the parties of Charles I, Charles II, James II, Louis XVI and Frederick William IV all sought to keep themselves going by recourse to foreign intrigue — is giving way but is far from being broken. In the first moment of alarm Abdul Kerim and Redif were summoned before a court martial. Mahmud Damad was disgraced, Midhat Pasha invited to return. Scarcely was the first panique over when Damad was again at the helm, protecting his trusties and keeping Midhat at arm's length, etc. I am convinced that the Muscovite diplomats are following the moves in Constantinople more attentively than those on either side of the Balkans.
Apropos 'value' in the first0 (most inadequate, even wholly erroneous, but not uninteresting) chapter of his Teopin Koneöauin
ifèwad on 'Value', having passed under review all the epigonic musings of contemporary German, French and English scholastics, Kaufman makes the following, absolutely correct commente:
.'In our review of the doctrines of value ... we saw that the political economists had certainly grasped the importance of this category.... All the same ... everyone who occupies himself with economic science is familiar with the fact that in figures of speech the importance of value is raised to the extreme, but in actual fact is forgotten as quickly as possible, as soon as there has more or less been some mention of it in the introduction; it is impossible to give even a single example where what is said about value is to be found organically linked to what is said about other matters, where what is said about value in the introduction has any influence at all on the subsequent arguments. I refer here, of course, only to the pure category "value", as distinct from price.'f
That is, indeed, the hallmark of all vulgar political economy. Adam Smith began it; his few profound and surprising applica-
1 1877
tions of the theory of value are found in haphazard remarks which have n o bearing whatever on his exposés ex professo. Ricardo's great transgression which, from the start, made him impossible to swallow, was precisely his attempt to prove the correctness of his theory of value in the light of economic facts which seemed wholly to contradict it.
My good nephews [3] yesterday did me the honour of presenting me with the five fat volumes of Bancroft's The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America. T h e book, published by Longmans, came as a godsend to them, since all they had to d o was put it down to their old man's b account at Longmans.
I have h a d a very nice reply from Dr Wiede to my letter of EXCUSE0
As for the Zukunft, I shall not answer at all, CONSIDERING THAT AN
ANONYMOUS CIRCULAR, SIGNED BY NOBODY, IS FROM ITS VERY NATURE — UNANSWERABLE
AND NOT TO BE ANSWERED.
The Irish skirmishing in the HOUSE OF COMMONS is most amusing. Parnell, etc., told Barry that the worst thing was the attitude of Butt who, with an eye to being appointed judge, threatened to resign his position as LEADER. H e might, they said, do them a great deal of h a r m in Ireland. Barry mentioned BUTTS LETTER TO THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE INTERNATIONAL,327 a document they would like to have so as to prove that his inflexibility towards the intransigents was only put on; but where should I find the thing now?
Salut.
Your
Moor
184. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 1 August
184
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 1 August 1877
Dear Bracke,
I shall be leaving London at the end of this week or the beginning of next and going to the Continent since my state of health necessitates my taking a cure.[307] In the meantime I have been forbidden work of any kind and you will therefore have to look elsewhere for someone to revise the translation of Lissagaray's book,[194] since without revision the thing's unprintable. (C. Hirsch might be able to suggest someone to you.)
Needless to say, Lissagaray finds the month's hiatus, during which you have failed to communicate with him, far from edifying and I consider his grievance to be fully justified.
Yours very sincerely,
K. M.
185. Marx to Engels. 8 August
DEAR FRED,
Still no news from the Longuets, which is all the more awkward in that we are leaving today (this evening).[307]
Herewith the Tableau économique[261] together with a few marginal notes.[328]
It was not possible for me to find Owen's stuff (or for that matter Fourier's Fausse industrie) in the attic since everything up there (it also does duty as Carry's bedroom, and the ladies have arrayed all their trunks there, to be packed with what is indispensable for the journey) is in the utmost confusion.
Ad vocem* Owen. Sargant's workb would be easily obtainable; of greater importance and unobtainable is the little pamphlet ON PRIVATE MARRIAGES.0 The two stout tomesd which Jennychen has got were definitely not at her house; I went through everything there; perhaps Longuet took them away with him. If the worst comes to the worst, all Owen's works could probably be obtained from OLD Allsop. MEANWHILE I have found here at home a very important work of Owen's in which he gives a résumé of his entire doctrine. The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race, 1849. I had forgotten all about it. I shall take this to your house today, together with Fourier's Théorie des quatre mouvements and Nouveau Monde industriel, and Hubbard's piece on Saint-Simon.e 329
My wife is in a far from satisfactory state of health. I hope Madame Lizzy is improving; with any luck she will soon be able to begin bathing in the sea which has, after all, always helped her hitherto. We all send her our best wishes.
And now, OLD BOY, au revoir. The damned Prussians can't stop bickering and the bogus old N.C.O.£ will do his utmost to push Francis Joseph into perpetrating some stupidity. All the latter needs now is a Hungarian revolution.
The Constantinople correspondent of the République Française writes that an intrigue of Mahmud Damad's has led to the deposition of the old Sheikh-al-Islam3S0 because of his revolutionary opinions, and his replacement by some other jackass.g He believes that, unless the palace intrigues cease very soon, Constantinople is in for a tumultuous time.
Adio.
Your
Moor[331]
So much for Quesnay's Tableau! Sub I a) avances annuelles des fermiers,*[1] paid out by the same; replaced by product of 5 milliards, of which 2 milliards (alv), 8 1877
the replacement in natura of the said avances annuelles, are spent by the Classe Productive (fermiers a n d their ouvriers*) in the course of the following year, i.e. the year beginning with the new harvest.
T h e avances primitivesh of 10 milliards do not figure in the Tableau, but are presupposed, just as it is further presupposed that the farmers have paid 2 milliards in money as rents to REVENUE (LANDLORDS, CHURCH AND STATE) before the circulation depicted in the Tableau begins. Besides the replacement of the avances annuelles of 2 milliards in natura, the gross product provides a further 3 milliards of which 2 in vivres? 1 in matières premièresd for industry. These 3 milliards u n d e r a', a", a'" are SURPLUS PRODUCE of which, however, only [2]/s counts as NET PRODUCE, produit net or REVENUE because V3, (IN FACT, the farmers' profit), forms the interest produced in natura for the avances primitives of 10 milliards. Sub III c) avances of the classe stérilee of 1 milliard consist solely of raw materials (see my previous exposition[258]); expended in the course of the year ending with the last harvest. Are replaced by industrial goods (c' and c") to the value of 2 milliards; of which / milliard = value of matières premières, 1 milliard= value of means of subsistence, which the classe stérile has received as salaire[1] from the other two classes in return for its labour.
Now for the mouvement depicted in the Tableau: 1. b — a'. LANDLORDS (inch church, state) buy vivres for 1 milliard from fermiers; thus V2 the money they paid for RENT OF LAND returns to them.
2. b—c'—a'". LANDLORDS buy industrial goods for 1 milliard from classe stérile, the latter, for that same milliard, means of subsistence from classe productive; thus, the second half of the money, which it has paid for RENT OF LAND, returns to it.
3. a—c". Farmers buy industrial products for 1 milliard from classe stérile (details in previous exposition). T h e line runs from a to c" and from c" back to a, so as to indicate that the greater portion of this expenditure by the farmers is capitalised, i.e. serves to maintain and enrich elements of the avances annuelles and primitives.
4. c — a". Classe stérile buys from classe productive raw materials for 1 milliard and thus replaces its avances for the coming year, IN FACT, its productive capital. Thus 1 milliard in money flows back to
186. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 8 August
the farmers and they again find themselves in possession of the 2 milliards in money which constitute the nation's pécule[3] and which they put back into circulation primarily via the LANDLORDS (in payment of rent). The circulation of money within each individual class is excluded from the Tableau, and rightly so.
Bearing in mind the time of its publication, the whole thing is one of the most brilliant generalisations political economy has ever produced.
The exposé I originally gave you is based on the Tableau somewhat modified, with Quesnay's consent, by Abbé Baudeau in Explication du Tableau économique. The line a — c" had given rise to misunderstandings. Similarly, in Baudeau's case, the mouvement does not start from b (LANDLORDS) but from a' (farmers), inasmuch as payment of monetary rent is not assumed to have been made. This and sundry other details in no way alter the case.
On the whole I think you would be well-advised to use the Tableau solely for your own guidance, but to confine yourself solely to words when describing the various very simple movements for the Vorwärts. If the Tableau itself were reproduced, it would be necessary to go into small, inessential details, which would confuse people rather than enlighten them.
lin, 1966
186
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
London, 8 August 1877 Dear Bracke,
Your letter received. I leave today.[307] You will be getting a letter from me in a few days' time (perhaps even in two) directed to Ems poste restante.
187. Marx to Maltman Barry. 15 August
Engels cannot be of service to you3S2; he is at a seaside resort and will shortly be moving on, possibly to Jersey or the Isle of Man or elsewhere.[333] Such little time for work as he has at his disposal is, moreover,— under present circumstances — wholly spoken for.
As regards B. Becker, I must say that I am totally opposed to his being entrusted in any way with Lissagaray's work[194] In Paris he abused me and Engels — not to speak of yourself — in no uncertain terms and now in London (where he has been for the past two months) has taken great care to keep out of my sight. His fury — as I had already heard from Paris — was due solely to your publishing Lissagaray's work! His insults and intrigues are a matter of complete indifference to me, but I cannot under any circumstances permit this individual to be mixed up in anything that has to do with Lissagaray.
As for Isolde,[3] she seems to know more about extortion than translation.
Yours,
K. M.
187
MARX TO MALTMAN BARRY
IN LONDON
[Neuenahr,] 15 August 1877
Dear Barry,
My address is: Dr K. Marx, Hotel Flora, Neuenahr, Rhenish Prussia. Neuenahr is the name of the village, this watering place not pretending to the dignity even of a market town. It is quite separated from the outer world; no railways within the boundaries of the valley of the Ahr.
I have seen from the Times—in the reading room of the
188. Marx to Engels. 17 August
Kurhaus[3]—that you have published an advertisement relating to action in the oriental affair.[334] Please inform me of the progress you make in that line.
Yours truly,
K. M.
Be so kind as to cash the enclosed cheque for 40£ St. and to forward it to me, in the form of two Twenty Pound Notes (Bank of England Notes, of course), in a registered letter, via Ostend, under the above address. I write again the name of the village: Neuenahr (Hotel Flora is the name of the house where I live).
188
MARX TO ENGELS[16]
IN RAMSGATE
Neuenahr, 17 August 1877 Hotel Flora DEAR FRED,
I'd have written to you before now, but when the whole person is, over a period of days, subject to conditions of a binding nature — in my case a posteriori always the immediate effect of the journey and one which drinking the spa waters only serves to consolidate — the said person is rendered singularly incapable of action. There's nothing much to report from here.[307] A veritable idyll; moreover, because the weather is not altogether favourable (although here, despite rain and wind, the air's always admirable), and no doubt also because of the persistent commercial crisis, the number of visitors has dropped from 3,000 to 1,700 or 1,800. Lucky Ahr Valley. No railways as yet; but a survey has already been made for a railway from Remagen to Ahrweiler, and commencement d'exécutionb is threatened for next year; however, it is not to run down the Ahr Valley, but will branch off left to Trier.
I have discovered a very good doctor here. Dr Schmitz (a native of Siegen), who has sense enough, despite the beautiful house and garden he occupies here, to practise medicine in Italy during the winter (from the end of October onwards). He has knocked about the world a lot, including California and Central America. His appearance and MANNERS are very reminiscent of LITTLE Dronke in his heyday.
He has pretty well confirmed what I suspected and wrote and told you from London.[3] My liver no longer shows any trace of enlargement; the digestive APPARATUS is SOMEWHAT DISORDERED, but the actual trouble is of a nervous kind. Today Schmitz again told me that, after a three-week stay here, I should go somewhere higher up, in the Black Forest, and take my fill of mountain and woodland air. Nous verrons!* He recommends the same for my wife who, by the by, is having to take medicine and arrived here at just the right moment, before her trouble got any worse. Tussychen's appetite is improving, which is the best sign with her.
Just where Neuenahr is, the hills are rather too far away from the actual spa, at least for those whom Karlsbad has spoiled.
We are much disturbed at not having had a mortal word about the ADVENTURES of the Longuet family.
How is your wife? Better, I hope; is the weather as capricious where you are? Here, in the Ahr Valley, people are not at all used to this sort of thing.
At the spa rooms here (where, like everywhere else, one takes baths as well as drinking the alkaline tipple) there is a READING ROOM in which are available, not only German and Dutch newspapers, but also The Times and Galignani's Messenger, Figaro and the
Indépendance belge—more than my requirements, in fact, since I refrain in so far as possible from reading newspapers here. Only, I see to my regret that the Turks are again wasting time — at least in my layman's opinion.
Some wine is drunk here, though it so happens that most of the guests (including myself) are forbidden Walporzheimer and the other red wines of the Ahr.
Schorlemmer had promised to come here; so far, however, I've had no 'intimation' of him, as Richard Wagner puts it.
And now, OLD BOY, with warmest regards from one family to another, I am,
Your
Moor First published abridged in Der Briefwech-Printed according to the original sei zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931 a See this volume, p. 245. - b We shall see.
189. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 18 August
189
M A R X T O W I L H E L M B R A C K E
IN EMS
[Neuenahr,] 18 August 1877 Hotel Flora Dear Bracke,
Let me have the eighth sheet.[254]
Couldn't you come here for half a day? It's not far from Ems. As regards B. Becker, he attempted (an attempt I thwarted without his knowledge) to cast suspicion on you in the eyes first of Hirsch and Kaub and to make you out to be a 'money-grubber'. Small wonder that he is now performing the opposite manoeuvre. It would be best not to give the man any indication that one knows him.
Hirsch is an absolutely reliable man and capable of the utmost self-sacrifice; his main weakness — insufficient knowledge of human nature so that people who know how to feign enthusiasm for the cause find it easy to take him in, if not for very long.
Trusting that I shall see you here and that you will make the acquaintance of my wife and daughter[3] (the youngest is with me here),
Yours very sincerely,
K. M.
190. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 24 August
190
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN EMS
Neuenahr, 24 August 1877 Hotel Flora
Dear Bracke,
I much regret that under the circumstances our meeting is not ieasible, since this would mean interrupting your cure, which is inadvisable.
I at once started going through the proofs,[254] a task that was interrupted by the arrival of my friend Professor Schorlemmer from Manchester who, however, is only staying here for a day or two. A letter to you I began yesterday at the same time '[2] will also include a few comments of mine and hence I shan't be able to finish it until I have done the proof-reading.
Apropos. I have had a letter from London from my friend Maltman Barry (a Scot). He is a former member of the General Council in London and the most zealous and competent of our British party comrades. He informs me that he is going to the Ghent Congress[324] and would like a recommendation to delegates from Germany if any should be coming. Perhaps you would be good enough to write me a note for him to this effect.
With kindest regards,
Yours,
Karl Marx
191. Engels to Marx. 25 August
191
ENGELS TO MARX
IN NEUENAHR
Ramsgate, 25 August 1877 2 Adelaide Gardens
Dear Moor,
Through Schorlemmer you will already have received news of the Longuets, Lafargues and ourselveslä either the day before yesterday or yesterday at the latest; since then you will have heard from Jenny direct about the little chap's" illness which has caused her somewhat excessive alarm; according to a letter from her today, the boy is out of danger, fortunately.
We leave here on Tuesday0 after a seven-week stay[289] which has done me a great deal of good but fallen far short of our expectations so far as Lizzie is concerned. WEATHER PERMITTING, I shall probably have to subject her to a« even more drastic change of air.[333]
I congratulate you on your liver's restoration to health. You must certainly make for the hills of the Black Forest. I asked Schorlemmer to bring you the map of Baden I used in 1849 s36
and trust he has done so. You may find it of use; considering the scale, the high ground in particular is very well drawn.
No doubt you are at last having better weather. We have done splendidly here. When it was raining everywhere else, it was merely overcast here. Two rainy afternoons in seven weeks, and today the first really wet day — and even then with longish breaks — so one can hardly complain of that. The rain, such as it was, fell mostly at night.
The immobility of the Turks may be largely attributed to the want of a train. To enable an army, not merely to fight, but to move about freely, seems to be beyond the ability of all barbarians and semi-barbarians; their army, organised with great difficulty along something approaching modern lines (for fighting), is expected to move about with the APPLIANCES of an old barbarian army. They have introduced modern weapons, but the ammunition pertaining thereto must tag along of its own accord. They organise and concentrate brigades, divisions and army corps in accordance with the rules of modern strategy, but forget that, unlike a band of janissaries, spahis or nomads, these cannot fend for themselves. This is already evident in the case of the Russians, and even more so in that of the Turks; hence, where armies of this kind are concerned, any calculation will err that ascribes to such military formations the mobility of the Western Europeans.
The blunders now being perpetrated by the Turks are all due to the anxiety which Gurko's advance has aroused in Constantinople.[336] Instead of being ordered to link up immediately — via the passes unoccupied by the Russians — either with Osman or Mehemet Ali, Suleiman is to make an immediate stand against the Russians and provide immediate protection for Constantinople. Hence the useless carnage on the Shipka Pass,[337] part of a combined operation which had been agreed with the other two armies and, being as usual unsynchronised, had miscarried. None of this, however, has made any difference, and once again everything will be the same as it was before.
The COLLAPSE of the Russians' military organisation is complete. They admit to losses of 15,000 men during the fighting (in Europe); their losses from sickness must amount to twice that or more. Transport completely BROKEN DOWN. Not one road under construction anywhere. Camp police non-existent. Even without the climate, the filth and the putrefying corpses would be enough to cause mass epidemics. Six Russian army corps, now eight, are in Bulgaria and, as a result of one battle, have been thrown back onto the defensive — of the most passive kind. Out of 50 Russian infantry divisions, 16 are on the Danube, 9 in the Caucasus and Asia, at least 5 are moving up, 6 are guarding the Black Sea and Baltic coasts, total 36; there remain 14, of which 2 are indispensable to the Baltic provinces, hence 12 infantry divisions = at most 120,000 men or, counting cavalry and artillery, 150,000 combat-ants available for all eventualities! And this against the 'sick man'[239]! Moreover, owing to a shortage of officers, new formations are either impracticable or worthless. In short, it's worse than during the Crimean War.[22] And the same stupidity into the bargain: impelled by rage at the defeat at Plevna they at once set colossal reinforcements in motion, although these will be able to operate for a month at most, during which time they will be useless and hard put to it to keep themselves in grub. And by the end of October at the latest it will be time to turn back — back, proud Cid(1)—to the bare larders of Wallachia, not one bridge will remain across the Danube and at the end of May 1878 they will, if
192. Marx to Nikolaus Delius. 25 August
all goes well, begin again exactly where they began at the end of May 1877.[339]
Best wishes to you all,
Your
F. E.
By the way, the Turks may take a few more severe beatings before the winter but that's of no consequence provided Constantinople doesn't let this intimidate it.
192
MARX TO NIKOLAUS DELIUS
IN BONN
Bad Neuenahr,[307] 25 August 1877 Hotel Flora
Dear Professor Delius,
My daughter Eleanor, who is with me here taking the waters, had the privilege of translating into English, for the London Shakespeare Society, one of your papers on the epic element in Shakespeare, [41] and would very much like to make your acquaintance in person. If it would be convenient to you to name a day and time at which we might meet, I should be glad to introduce my daughter to you.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
Karl Marx
We shall probably be spending another 8 or 9 days here before, WIND AND WEATHER PERMITTING, moving on to the Black Forest.
193. Engels to Natalie Liebknecht. 4 September
193
ENGELS TO NATALIE LIEBKNECHT
IN LEIPZIG
London, 4 September 1877 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Mrs Liebknecht,
No more than a short note in great haste in reply to your amiable letter of the 28th ult. Liebknecht had said something about coming to London[340] from the Ghent Congress[324]; on my return from Ramsgate,[289] I now find that that Congress is to take place between 9 September (next Sunday) and 17 September (the following Sunday)." Now, I myself am leaving for Scotland tomorrow with my wife, on the doctor's advice, and shall be there a fortnight,[333] during which time letters will not as a rule be able to reach me; I intend in any case to be back by Thursday the 20th, or Friday the 21st at the latest so that, even if Liebknecht were to come over on the 18th, he would arrive at most a couple of days before me. Moreover, during this period I shall keep in touch with my house by telegraph so as to ascertain all that is necessary concerning his arrival. The people who look after our house during our absence have been instructed to make him really comfortable when he arrives, his room is ready and waiting for him, and I am sure that my instructions will be complied with. Whether the Marxes will be back here by that time, I cannot quite say, but from the last news I got, I am inclined to think they will, as they had left Neuenahr and said nothing more about going to stay in the Black Forest, as originally intended.[307] Perhaps you know more about it through Mrs Marx than we do over here. At all events, Liebknecht can obtain the latest news about this when he is in Ghent by dropping a line to Mad. Lafargue (Marx's second daughter), 225 Camden Road, N. W., London. Should neither Marx nor I be here when Liebknecht arrives, he can find entertainment, not only at the Lafargues', but also at the house of Marx's eldest daughter, Mad. Longuet, 30 Leighton Grove, Leighton Road, Kentish Town, N. W., or look up our old friend Lessner, 12 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square. At the moment the Longuets are also away — at the seaside resort of Yarmouth — and
194. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 27 September
will be back at any rate by the middle of September, though I can't say what day.
I do indeed share your view that Liebknecht spends too much time sitting down[291]; it may be as well not to make a fuss about such things, but that doesn't mean one should accustom oneself to .a sedentary way of life. Whether you can wean him away from service in the front line (or rather the avant-garde) is, I should say, somewhat doubtful; anyone who has spent so many years in that service derives too much pleasure from it; however, by long practice he will soon reach the stage of eluding the toils of the penal system. Doubtless, however, you could wish nothing better than that Liebknecht should not continue to spend in prison such time as he is not on duty and all such time as he is not in prison either in the Reichstag or on his travels.
My wife most cordially reciprocates your amiable sentiments. With warmest regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
Since I do not know whether Liebknecht is with you, might I request you to be so kind as to convey the contents of this letter to him.
194
MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[52]
IN H O B O K E N "
London, 27 September 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. Dear Friend,
Unfortunately it is not till now, on my return from the Continent (whither I had been sent by the doctors),807 that I have found your letter. Hence my answer may perhaps arrive much too late. As for the rest, Pater peccavi(1)l But the damned insomnia which has afflicted me this year has made me tremendously remiss about writing, since I have simply had to devote all my more tolerable moments to work.
Should Weydemeyer not have had Kapital und Arbeit printed yet, I would look it over as the original was full of the most appalling printing errors.[341] You have absolutely no idea of the treatment meted out to me by the party, i.e. the Chemnitzers (AS REPRESENTED BY Vahlteich). Only at Liebknecht's insistence, and also because Chemnitz had represented the thing as extremely urgent, did I undertake the work before leaving for Karlsbad, despite the highly disordered state of my nerves. And in view of the many asininities perpetrated by Most (now happily ensconced with Mr Dühring; a conceited laddie who, when he reads something, no matter what, instantly converts it into material for publication) and the small amount of space prescribed, this was no trifle. VERY WELL! Months went by without any news, I made enquiries [12] to which Vahlteich 'coolly' replied, saying the thing was only being set up in such fleeting moments as were left to the party printing office after setting up the Chemnitzers' philistine advertisements! Never before have I encountered such cool effrontery! This meant that the printing took almost a year! And when the opusculum did at last appear, it was swarming with printing errors which distorted the sense!
To avoid losing time it might perhaps be better if you were to go ahead with the printing in the way you suggested, and I was to correct for the second edition what had been printed (which would be far easier).
I and Engels will amend the Communist Manifesto straight away and then let you have it.[148]
Ad vocem* Capital and Douai: Firstly: Has Douai got a publisher? Secondly: The French edition[17] consumed so much of my time that I myself shall not again collaborate in any way on a translation. You must know whether Douai knows enough English to do the thing on his own. If so, he has my full authorisation and my blessing.[342] In which case, however:
Thirdly: He must without fail, when translating, compare the 2nd German edition with the French edition in which I have included a good deal of new matter and greatly improved my presentation of much else..There are two things I shall be sending you in the course of this week:
1. A copy of the French edition for Douai. 2. A list of places where the French edition shouldn't be compared with the German, but the French text be used as the only basis.
In Naples Mr Uriele Cavagnari is preparing the Italian edition of Capital (from the French edition); he is having the book printed at his own expense and is going to sell it at cost price. Good man![343]
What you write about the Germans in no way surprises me. It's exactly like that over here. That's why Engels and I have disassociated ourselves from the whole bunch (as has Lessner). The only exception is a German working man with whom I am on friendly terms and whose name momentarily escapes me (Weyer,(2)
I think); he has a seat on the London TRADES' UNION COUNCIL and was responsible for the only sensible resolution — that working men should elect only working men to represent them in the HOUSE OF COMMONS — at the SHAMEFUL TRADES' UNION CONGRESS in Leicester,[344] at which the bourgeois played patron, among their number Mr Th. Brassey, the great swindler and millionaire, son of the notorious railway Brassey who 'contracted for' Europe and Asia.
The Ghent Congress,[324] whatever else it left to be desired, at least had the advantage that Guillaume and Co. were totally abandoned by their former allies. It was only with difficulty that the Flemish workers were restrained from lambasting the great Guillaume. That bombastic chatterbox De Paepe, and with him Brismée, insulted them; Mr John Hales ditto. The latter placed himself under the command of—Barry whom I had induced to go, partly as a member of Congress (as whose delegate, I don't know), partly as correspondent for the Standard (London).[345] I for my part do not wish ever again to become personally involved with Jung and Hales, but their second defection is useful so far as the Jurassians are concerned. Barry is my FACTOTUM here; he also kept an eye on the Times reporters (which newspaper has sacked Mr Eccarius). But more especially it was through him that, for months on end, I sustained incognito a cross-fire against that Russomane Gladstone in London's FASHIONABLE PRESS ( Vanity Fair and Whitehall Review), as also in the English, Scottish and Irish provincial press, unmasking his underhand dealings with the Russian spy Novikova, the Russian Embassy in London, etc.; it was through him, too, that I exerted influence on English parliamentarians in the Commons and the Lords, who would throw up their hands in horror if they knew that it was the RED TERROR DOCTOR, as they call me, who had been their souffleur during the oriental crisis.
That crisis marks a new turning-point in European history. Russia — and I have studied her affairs from original Russian sources, unofficial and official (the latter accessible to only very few, but procured for me by friends in Petersburg),—has long been on the verge of an upheaval; all the elements are to hand. The gallant Turks have advanced the explosion by many years through the blows they have dealt not only to the Russian army and Russian finances, but also personally to the dynasty in command of the army (Tsar,(3) heir-apparentb and six other Romanovs). The upheaval will begin, secundum artem,c with some constitutional tomfoolery, et puis il y aura un beau tapage.d Unless Mother Nature is exceptionally unkind, we shall yet live to see the fun!
The silly nonsense in which the Russian students are indulging is merely a symptom, and of no value in itself. But symptom it is. All strata of Russian society are economically, morally and intellectually in a state of complete disintegration.
This time the revolution will begin in the East, hitherto the impregnable bastion and reserve army of counter-revolution.
It was with pleasure that Mr Bismarck watched the drubbing, but more than that it was not to be. Russia, if too much weakened, could not again keep Austria in check as she had done during the Franco-Prussian War! And, should revolution actually result there, what would become of the Hohenzollern dynasty's last safeguard?
Just now everything depends on the Poles (in the Kingdom of Poland) lying doggo. Rioting is the last thing that is wanted there at the moment! Bismarck would immediately step in, and Russian chauvinism would again rally round the Tsar. On the other hand, were the Poles to bide their time until Moscow and Petersburg are in flames and Bismarck were then to step in as saviour, Prussia would meet — her Mexico[346]!
Again and again I have dinned this into such Poles as I am in contact with and as have any influence over their compatriots.
The French crisis[347] is an altogether secondary affair compared with the oriental one. Yet one can only hope that the bourgeois republic wins, for otherwise we shall have the same old game all over again, and no nation can afford to repeat the same stupidities too often.
195. Engels to Hermann Engels. 5 October
With warmest regards from myself and my wife,
Your
Karl Marx
Postscript The Genevan notary, Wessel, has informed me of the business of Lingenau's will.[348]
We (i.e. the executors) shall have to appoint a proxy in America, and you would be thé only suitable person. What we need to know above all, however, is how the matter stands in America and whether the will can be implemented without endless court proceedings. You would oblige me if you could make inquiries about this and let me know.
195
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN ENGELSKIRCHEN
London, 5 October 1877
Dear Hermann,
At the end of this month (31 October) I shall have to make payments of approx. £380 and should therefore be pleased if you would send me the corresponding amount pretty soon. Might I add that I should be grateful if it could be so arranged that the remittance is made payable here before the 31st (incl. the three days of grace, hence nominally payable on the 27th inst. at the latest), since I should otherwise be unable, local banking practice being what it is, to avail myself of it on the 31st and, for anyone not in business, discounting is always troublesome and sometimes, even, well nigh impossible unless one gets various other people moving; and I should imagine that the Barmen Bankers' Association can make payment three days after date or sight as readily as ten.
196. Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann. 12 October
I've loafed about a great deal this summer, seven weeks at the seaside [2 8 9] and then a fortnight in Scotland,[333] but it has actually done me a tremendous amount of good.
N o doubt you will now admit that I was right in my assessment of the Turks' power of resistance and the weakness of the Russians in attack.[3] Next year the Turks will be twice as strong because they will be able to train their men during the winter. Should the Russians not move their army across the Danube for the winter, and this I can scarcely believe, they may be in for a surprise. Ice floes on the Danube, for instance, have scant respect for pontoon bridges, even if they do belong to the Emperor of Russia. Still, come what may, Russia will have her Constitution before the end of 1878 and, with it, the second edition of the French Revolution of 1789-94.
The man who has largely prevented the T u r k s from playing an altogether different kind of game with the Russians is the Sultan's b
brother-in-law, Mahmud Damad Pasha, friend of Ignatiyev and for years in the latter's pay. Should you ever hear that he has been overthrown, you may rest assured that the vigour with which the war is conducted will be of a completely different order. H e is also the man who brought about Mehemet Ali's recall.
Love to Emma, c the children, and all brothers and sisters,
Your
Friedrich
196
ENGELS T O LUDWIG KUGELMANN
IN HANOVER
London, 12 October 1877 Dear Kugelmann,
I am writing in great haste (I have a chemist from Mannheim d
and a university lecturer from Munich staying with me) to inform
197. Engels to Hermann Engels. 13 October
you as requested that I have received your letter and that, if I have the time and am able to do so, I shall gladly supply Mr Ecker with information as soon as I know more precisely what he wants of me.[349] I doubt if I can be of much help to him, for a perfect working man's dwelling, which on the one hand meets all the sanitary, etc., requirements and on the other won't cost the working man too much, is, as you know, like a triangular square.
We are getting on pretty well here; Marx has been at Neuenahr,[307] for the moment his liver is back to normal, his nerves are better, hence also his nights and, but for his being such a prey to colds, there would be little to complain of. I myself am very well; loafed about a lot during the summer, on top of which there have been numerous visitors, but I think I shall be able to get back to work next week.
Best wishes,
Your
F. Engels
197
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN ENGELSKIRCHEN
London, 13 October 1877
Dear Hermann,
It will be quite all right if the sum is made payable to me here in the manner described, but on the 30th.(1) It must go through my bank, you see, and won't be credited there until the relevant cheque has actually been received by the CLEARING HOUSE in the afternoon; but by then the bank will be closed and I shan't be able to make use of it until the following day. Would you also be good enough to advise me which banker in Barmen is placing the money at my disposal, so that I can establish my identity;
198. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 19 October
otherwise, if one no longer represents a firm, one frequently runs into difficulties in a case like this.
The collapse of the Russian army's organisations, command, staff, ammunition supply, rations, clothing, camp administration, etc., becomes daily ever more complete, a mighty debacle entailing the sacrifice of some 100,000 men. During the last fortnight in September and the first week in October the Russians are said to have lost 15,000 dead (i.e. those who died of wounds and sickness) and, since the beginning of the war, 47,000 dead alone. If they stay before Plevna[360] and on the Lom for another three weeks, it could be that the entire army will disintegrate.
Best wishes.
Your
Friedrich
There has in fact been a bit of frost here too, but the geraniums are still flowering a little outside. In Scotland, however, the entire harvest is done for; on 20 September, near Edinburgh, I noticed that the corn was still quite green.[333]
198
MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[52]
IN HOBOKEN
[London,] 19 October 1877
Dear Sorge,
At the same time as this letter, I am sending you the enclosed manuscript for Douai, in case he is doing the translation of Capital." The manuscript contains, besides a few alterations to the German text, indications as to where the latter is to be replaced by the French edition.[17] In the copy of the French edition intended for Douai, also despatched to your address today, the above-mentioned passages in the manuscript are marked. I found the work much more time-consuming than I had thought, added to which I had a nasty bout of influenza and have not quite got over it yet.
In case of publication,[342] Douai must say in the foreword that, besides the 2nd German edition, he has used the French edition which came out later and was revised by me, but BY NO MEANS that this American edition has been authorised by the writer. Were he to do so, English booksellers would at once set about pirating it in England, and would be legally entitled to do so. Although I am happy to concede translation rights all over Europe, wherever there is a COPYRIGHT [agreement] with England, this certainly does not apply to England, that land of Mammon. London booksellers have already made several attempts, frustrated by me, to contrive an English edition without my consent and hence also without payment. I, however, am quite determined that these gentlemen shall not enrich themselves at my expense, be it by a penny.
Just at the moment Engels' time is taken up in all kinds of ways, first by work for the Vorwärts,[155] secondly by a flood of philistine visitors from Germany, thirdly by his own 'influenza', and fourthly by his wife's illness. This is why we have been unable to tackle the Manifesto together to date.[148]
In Germany a corrupt spirit is asserting itself in our party, not so much among the masses as among the leaders (upper class and 'workers'). The compromise with the Lassalleans has led to further compromise with other waverers; in Berlin (via Most) with Dühring and his 'admirers', not to mention a whole swarm of immature undergraduates and over-wise graduates who want to give socialism a 'higher, idealistic' orientation, i.e. substitute for the materialist basis (which calls for serious, objective study if one is to operate thereon) a modern mythology with its goddesses of Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternité. Dr Höchberg, the gentleman who edits the Zukunft, is a representative of this tendency and has 'bought his way' into the party — no doubt with the 'noblest' of intentions, but I don't give a fig for 'intentions'. Seldom has anything more pitiful than his programme for the Zukunft been ushered into the world with more 'modest pretensions'.
The workers themselves, when like Mr Most and Co. they give up working and become literati by profession, invariably wreak 'theoretical' havoc and are always ready to consort with addle-heads of the supposedly 'learned' caste. In particular, what we had been at such pains to eject from the German workers' heads decades ago, thereby ensuring their theoretical (and hence also practical) ascendancy over the French and English,—namely Utopian socialism, the play of the imagination on the future structure of society,—is once again rampant and in a far more ineffectual form, not only as compared with the great French and English Utopians, but with — Weitling. It stands to reason that Utopianism which bore within itself the seeds of critical and materialist socialism, before the advent of the latter, can now, post festum, only seem silly, stale and thoroughly reactionary.
Latterly the governing principle of the Vorwärts would seem to have been to accept manuscripts — 'copie', as the French say — regardless of its provenance. To take a few of the recent numbers,— first we find a chap unacquainted with the rudiments of economics providing grotesque revelations about the 'laws' governing crises.[351] All he reveals is his own inner 'collapse'. And then we actually get a pert lad from Berlin being allowed to publish, at the 'sovereign people's' expense, an endless series of articles containing his unedifying thoughts on England and the most egregious Pan-Slav poppycock [352]
Satis superque!*
Your
Karl Marx
Apropos. Some (a few) years since, a kind of Blue Book (whether official or not, I don't know) came out on the conditions of the MINERS in Pennsylvania[353] who are known to be in a state of altogether feudal dependence on their MONEY LORDS (I believe the thing came out after a bloody encounter[354]). It is of the utmost importance that I should have that publication and, if you can get hold of it for me, I will send you what it costs; if not, you might be able to let me have the title, in which case I should apply to Harney (in Boston).
199. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 23 October
199
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 23 October 1877
Dear Bracke,
Your news is bad but was readily predictable. I have already suggested on a number of- occasions that you should kick out the gracious Isolde.[3] However much corrected, her product remains an abortion.[254] Add to that the waste of time, waste of money, etc. There can be no legal objection to that person's being 'kicked out' since she does not, and is unable to, perform what she contractually undertook to do. Bios had at one time proffered his services (unfortunately not until after Isolde).[194]
The review, Zukunft, is by no means satisfactory, its main endeavour being to substitute ideological catch-phrases such as 'justice', etc., for materialist knowledge. Its programme is wretched! Promises, what's more, to peddle phantasms of the future structure of society. This, the first result of a bourgeois[13]
buying his way into the party, is not a happy one — as might have been predicted.
The Vorwärts, too, is publishing a mass of immature, stereotyped essays by aspiring and presumptuous striplings.c I shouldn't have thought the proletariat's money was intended to provide a dumping-ground for such exercises.
I trust your health is improving. I myself have been suffering from influenza for several weeks,— most disruptive of work.
Yours,
K. M.
200. Marx to Sibylle Hess. 25 October
200
MARX TO SIBYLLE HESS[355]
IN PARIS
London, 25 October 1877
41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Mrs Hess,
Very many thanks from myself as well as from Engels for the two copies we have been sent of the 'dynamic theory of matter'.(1)
We are both of the opinion that the work of our late friend has very considerable scientific merit and does credit to our party. So, quite apart from our personal relations with an ally of many years' standing, we would regard it as our duty to explain the significance of his work and to do all we could for its sales.
Are the two parts announced in Hess' foreword also available in manuscript?
You will not take it amiss if I enclose herewith the price of the two copies, the point being, not so much your personal expense, as the cost of the undertaking.
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
I shall write to Petersburg and New York on the subject of the work.
201. Marx to Sigmund Schott. 3 November
201
MARX TO SIGMUND SCHOTT [9 6]
IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN
London, 3 November 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sir,
My best thanks for the packages. Your offer to arrange for other material to be sent to me from France, Italy, Switzerland, etc. is exceedingly welcome, although I feel reluctant to make undue claims on you. I don't at all mind waiting, by the by, nor will this in any way hold up my work, for I am applying myself to various parts of the book in turn. In fact, privatim, I began by writing Capital in a sequence (starting with the 3rd, historical section[357]) quite the reverse of that in which it was presented to the public, saving only that the first volume — the last I tackled — was got ready for the press straight away, whereas the two others remained in the rough form which all research originally assumes.
I enclose a photograph herewith, because the copy of the French edition that goes off to you at the same time as this letter only contains a very far from flattering likeness done from a London photograph by a Parisian artist.
Your most obedient Servant,
Karl Marx
202. Marx to Wilhelm Bios. 10 November
202
MARX TO WILHELM BLOS[368]
IN HAMBURG
London, 10 November 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Bios,
I was delighted to hear from you [Dir][3] again at last (that 'Dir' slipped naturally from my pen. So do drop the 'Sie'h in future). I had long since proposed that the abominable Isolde0 be dismissed, and fulminated against her in vain.
Whenever, in 'la Place', the word place is written with a capital P, it always means the Place Vendôme, that being the seat of the commander of the National Guard; in Paris at the time he was the equivalent of what we call 'town-major'.
As regards the 'suppression de l'Etat',à an expression which Lissagaray himself will be altering in the 2nd French edition,[6] the sense is no different from that expounded in my pamphlet on the 'Civil War' in France/ In short, you can translate it 'abolition (or suppression) of the class state'.
I 'bear no ill-will' (as Heine says)g and nor for that matter does Engels.[359] Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. Let me cite one proof of this: such was my aversion to the personality cult that at the time of the International, when plagued by numerous moves — originating from various countries — to accord me public honour, I never allowed one of these to enter the domain of publicity, nor did I ever reply to them, save with an occasional snub. When Engels and I first joined the secret communist society, we did so only on condition that anything conducive to a superstitious belief in authority be eliminated from the Rules.[360]
(Lassalle subsequently operated in the reverse direction.)
But events such as occurred at the last party congress[286]—they are being well and truly exploited by enemies of the party abroad — have in any case made it necessary for us to be circumspect in our relations with 'party members in Germany'.
Apart from that, my state of health compels me to devote to the
203. Engels to Ernst Dronke. 20 November
completion of my book" the time allotted to me for work by my doctor; and Engels, who is working on several longer books, is still sending contributions to the Vorwärts.[156]
It would amuse me to hear more from time to time about my 'combinations with Father Beckx'.[361]
Engels will be writing to you shortly. With warm regards from my wife and my daughter Eleanor.
Totus tuus,b
Karl Marx
203
ENGELS TO ERNST DRONKE
IN WATERLOO
[Copy]
[London], 20 November [1877]
Unless I have the RECEIPT by tomorrow morning, I shall feel compelled to go to the CENTRAL OFFICE here and inform them of everything that has taken place.[362]
204. Marx to Sibylle Hess. 29 November
204
MARX TO SIBYLLE HESS[355]
IN PARIS
London, 29 November 1877 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Mrs Hess,
Both I and Engels have been absent from London for some considerable time and, after returning, I necessarily had first to read our late friend's book,[356] before being in a position to write to you.
Engels and I thank you very much for sending the same. In so far as we have any influence, we shall endeavour to disseminate it. It contains some brilliant notions but unfortunately — no doubt because Hess could not put the finishing touches to it — there are quite a number of dubious points that lend themselves to attack by professional natural scientists.
Wishing you the best of success, I remain
Yours sincerely,
Karl Marx
205. Engels to Marx. End of 1877-beginning of 1878[363]
Dear Moor,
I have gone and got me two swollen ankles and shall be unable to wear boots for a couple of days. I shall drive to the bank forthwith to collect some money and, if you care to come this evening, you will find what you require.
Tussy is quite right; Maskelyne should be read either after or at the 5am« time as Wallace, for the details about people in Maskelyne, all of which cannot possibly be remembered, acquire interest only through the intimate knowledge of these various persons displayed by Wallace. So be so kind as to return it when you come so that I shall be able to appreciate Wallace in all his
FOOLERY.
Your
F. E.
1878
206
Endnotes
[2 3 4] This letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin, The Communist View on Morality, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1974.—185
[235] This letter was written at Nikolai Utin's request and based on information received from him. Referring to the important services rendered to the party by Tomanovskaya, Marx meant her activities as a m e m b e r of the Russian section of the International and her participation in the Paris Commune . — 185
[236] T h e second page of the original letter is missing. The penultimate paragraph of this letter is published according to the text quoted by Wilhelm Liebknecht in an item printed by the Vorwärts, No. 8, 19 January 1877, in the section 'Sozialpolitische Uebersicht'. H e introduced the quotation with the following note: 'A competent person writes to us in a private letter about the present state of the Eastern Question.'—186
[2 4 0] In one of his toasts (Tischreden) Martin Luther likened the world to a d r u n k e n peasant unable to m o u n t a horse (D. Martin Luthers Werke, kritische Gesamtaus-gabe, Tischreden, Weimar, 1912, Bd. I, S. 298).—191
[2 4 1] Nikolaus Delius' article 'Die epischen Elemente in Shakespeare's D r a m e n ' appeared in 1877 in the Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft. Translated into English by Eleanor Marx, it was included in the transactions of the New Shakespeare Society.—191, 273, 446
[2 4 2] In his reply of 29 July 1877, F r e u n d informed Marx of the book's title: G. Rümelin, Shakespearestudien, 2. Aufl., Stuttgart, 1874.—192
[244] T h e Inner Temple—one of the Inns of Court in London, four legal societies having exclusive right of admitting persons to practise at bar.—192
[246] exposition of the first volume of Capital. But he was able to accomplish this
[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
[247] only in 1883, after Marx's death. Deville's book Le Capital de Karl Marx. Resume et accompagné d'un aperçu sur le socialisme scientifique appeared in several editions in Paris in 'La bibliothèque socialiste' series.—193 2 4 b In January 1877, Wilhelm Liebknecht was in Offenbach where he was nominated for the second ballot to the German Reichstag (see also Note 237).—194 2 4 ' Engels' work Wilhelm Wolff was printed in June-November 1876 in Die Neue Welt of which Wilhelm Liebknecht was the editor (see present edition, Vol. 24).—195 33*
[248] After the elections to the German Reichstag held on 10 January 1877 (see Note 237), a second ballot took place in a number of constituencies. As a result, three more Social-Democratic deputies were elected (in addition to the nine who had been successful at the first ballot): August Bebel (later replaced by Wilhelm Bracke), August Kapell and Moritz Rittinghausen.—195
[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
[250] Engels' letter to Enrico Bignami of 13 February dealing with the results of the elections to the German Reichstag of 10 January 1877 (see Note 237), was read out at the congress of the Federation of Northern Italy (see Note 252) and then published in La Plebe, No. 7, 26 February 1877. See Engels' 'Letter to Enrico Bignami on the German Elections of 1877' (present edition, Vol. 24).—198
[251] On 20 February Engels received La Plebe of 7 and 21 January and 16 February 1877.—198
[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
[252] The second congress of the International's Federation of Northern Italy was held in Milan on 17 and 18 February 1877. On the significance of the congress, see Engels' article 'From Italy' (present edition, Vol. 24).— 200
[253] Neuchâtel (Switzerland) was the place of residence of James Guillaume who, after Mikhail Bakunin's death in 1876 headed the international anarchist alliance (see also Note 193).—200
[165] Vol. 23).—120 62 On 30 May 1876, a palace revolution overthrew Sultan Abdul Aziz and
[256] On 26 February 1877, La Plebe published three resolutions passed by the
[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
[260] The Physiocrats—followers of a trend in the classical bourgeois political economy that arose in France in the mid-18th century. The Physiocrats held Nature to be the only source of wealth, and agriculture the only sphere of the economy where value was created. Although they underestimated the role of industry and commerce, the Physiocrats made an important contribution to economic science by shifting the search for the origins of surplus value from circulation to production, thereby laying the basis for the analysis of capitalist production. Advocates of large-scale capitalist farming, they exposed the moribund nature of the feudal economy, thus paving the way ideologically for the bourgeois revolution in France. Marx gave a critical analysis of the Physiocrats' views in the Theories of Surplus Value, the central section of the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (see present edition, Vol. 30, pp. 352-76).— 208, 452
[262] 262 In his article 'Russian Policy and Deeds in Turkestan', published in The Contemporary Review (Vol. XXVIII) in November 1876, Gladstone described the political line pursued by the Russian government as one 'of marked moderation and prudence'. In his opinion, it presented no threat to British rule in India. Maltman Barry's article 'Mr. Gladstone and Russian Intrigue', written with Marx's assistance and printed by the Whitehall Review on 3 February 1877, subjected Gladstone's views to a critical analysis.— 209
[263] On 4 September 1870, the people of Paris launched an uprising that overthrew the Second Empire and established a republic headed by the bourgeois Government of National Defence. On 12 September 1870, Thiers, its head, left for London whence he intended to travel to St Petersburg and Vienna. The purpose of the tour was to convince the governments of the three countries of the 'loyalty' of the French republican government (see K. Marx, The Civil War in France, present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 311-12).— 210
[265] As is seen from Danielson's letter of 7(19) March 1877, he sent Marx the following books: A. Vasilchikov, Landownership and Agriculture in Russia and Other European States, vols I-II, St. Petersburg, 1876; P. A. Sokolovsky, Essays in the History of the Village Commune in the North of Russia, St Petersburg, 1877; V. Ya. Bunyakovsky, Anthropobiological Researches as They Apply to Russia's Male Population, St Petersburg, 1874; Statistical Chronicle of the Russian Empire and A Collection of Materials Concerning the Artels in Russia, issues I-III (all in Russian). See also Note 68.—213
[266] In 1864, Mikhail Bakunin set up the secret anarchist Alliance de la démocratie sociale in Florence. Later, Frenchmen, Poles and others also became its members. The International Brethren formed the kernel of the Alliance, its 'élite'. In 1868, this secret organisation founded the semi-legal Bakuninist Alliance de la démocratie socialiste (see Note 201).— 214
[268] In his letter to Marx of 9 April 1877 Wilhelm Bracke wrote the following concerning the publication of the German translation of Lissagaray's Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (see notes 194 and 211) that was being prepared at the time: 'I have, as you will see, thought up the title myself, but must admit that I don't like it. What I find particularly displeasing is the note that Lissagaray corrected the text beforehand.'—217
[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
[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
[269] A reference to the campaign that preceded the elections to the German Reichstag held on 10 January 1877 (see also notes 237, 246 and 248).—218
[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
[270] Having squandered the money collected for party purposes, Louis Pio and Paul Geleff, leaders of the Danish Social-Democratic Party, secretly left Denmark on 23 March 1877 and settled in the USA (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 219).—221
[26] An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—21, 82, 222, 324
[27] In the second half of July 1874, Marx took a rest cure in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Engels was in Ramsgate (Eastbourne) between mid-July and mid-August 1874.—21, 43
[38] Catholic clergy and abolishing the Catholic Church's right of supervision over
[271] A reference to the portrait of Marx in the French edition of the first volume of Capital (see this volume, p. 287).—223, 227
[276] Bracke sent Engels the stenographic reports of the German Reichstag sessions of 16, 17 and 18 April 1877 (Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags. 3. Legislaturperiode, I. Session 1877, Bd. I, Berlin, 1877, S. 489-594), at which the changes in the trade regulations were discussed.—227
[277] The Reichstag session of 18 April 1877 discussed Bracke's proposal to reconsider the election of the National Liberal Dr. Weigel from Kassel on the grounds that pressure had been put on the voters. He said, in part: 'The credentials commission stated first of all that rejection had been proposed without any evidence and without supplying the names of the individuals concerned... I should like to draw your attention to the fact that the persons involved are essentially dependent people, workers, for whom the mere mention of their names in the protest is often sufficient for them to lose their jobs or bring about other unpleasant experiences.'—227
[278] In the discussion of the Bill on the trade regulations proposed by the Catholic Party of the Centre (see Note 423), Bebel spoke at the Reichstag session of 18 April 1877 in defence of the alternative Social-Democratic Bill which provided for a set of measures aimed to shorten working hours, introduce labour protection, etc. He embarked on a sharp polemic with representatives of the bourgeois parties.—227
[279] In 1877, the British Home Secretary Richard Assheton Cross introduced a Bill providing for measures to regulate working hours, specifically in the domestic industry and workshops. The Bill limited the working day of adolescents to 10 V2 hours and supplemented the law of 1874 on restricting child labour. The Bill became law in 1878.—228
[280] The original of Engels' letter to B. Lindheimer has not been found. The rough draft was written on Lindheimer's letter to Engels of 25 April 1877.—229
[282] At that time Engels obviously did not yet know about the softas' demonstration held in front of the premises of the Chamber of Deputies in Constantinople on 24 May 1877 (for the softas see Note 156). At the Chamber's session, the softas' delegates voiced their indignation at the surrender of Ardagan by Turkish troops and demanded the immediate resignation of the War Minister Redif-Pasha and a War Council member, Damad Mahmud-Pasha. The Chamber decided to invite all ministers to discuss the necessary military steps. A state of siege was proclaimed in the capital and its environs the next day and numerous arrests were made. There was no change in the nature of hostilities.— 232
[284] A reference to the Adzhars' guerrilla warfare in the rear of the Russian army in the Caucasus, which held back its advance in that theatre of war.—234
[285] E ng e] s w a s entitled to a fee for his article 'Karl Marx' written for Bracke's Volks-Kalender for 1878 (see Note 275).—236
[288] On 22 (10) June 1877, Russian troops crossed the Lower Danube. On the Russian army's crossing of the Middle Danube, see Note 294.— 237
[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
[290] In a letter of 14 June 1877, Liebknecht asked Engels for a photograph of Urquhart, who had just died, and requested him to write a short biography of the deceased.— 238
[293] For the most part, this paragraph coincides with the note printed by the Vorwärts on 11 July 1877 in the 'Sozialpolitische Uebersicht' column, which opened with the words 'We have received a letter from Pam'and was supplied with editorial comments. The note may have been written by Carl Hirsch, who used a passage from Engels' letter to him (which has not been found). The comment on the note was probably written by Hasenclever.—239
[294] On 27(15) June 1877, Russian troops crossed the Middle Danube in the vicinity of Sistovo (Svistov in Bulgarian).— 239
[295] when staying in London in 1876, the German Social-Democrat Gustav Rasch maintained friendly relations with Prince Nicholas of Montenegro.—239
[297] Engels is referring to the proofs of Part II of Anti-Diihring (see Note 155), which appeared in the Vorwärts between 27 July and 30 December 1877 as a series of articles under the general heading 'Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der politischen Oekonomie'.— 240
[298] In July 1877 the first part of Anti-Dühring was published in Leipzig as a separate pamphlet headed 'Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. I. Philosophie'.— 240
[300] A reference to the Russian army's siege of Silistria, a Turkish fortress (Bulgarian name: Silistra), in May-June 1854, during the Crimean War of 1853-56.—241
[301] 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. The full English translation of the letter was published 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.—241
[302] Marx is most probably referring to Johann Most and Julius Vahlteich who tried to secure a ban on the continued publication of Anti-Dühring at the Gotha Congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (see Note 286).— 242
[49] This letter was published in English for the first time, in an abridged form, in: K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Letters. The Personal Correspondence, 1844-1877. Edited by Fr. J. Raddatz, Boston, Toronto, [1981].—38, 243
[303] After the leaders of the Eisenach party had read the Critique of the Gotha Programme, the manuscript was returned to Marx. Planning a pamphlet devoted to the Gotha Programme, Liebknecht asked Engels in a letter of 13 July 1877 for a copy of Marx's manuscript as he did not have one.—243
[21] In May 1874, Alexander II arrived in England to strengthen Russia's contacts with the British government. The stated purpose of the Tsar's visit was to see his daughter Maria Alexandrovna, the Duke of Edinburgh's wife.—18
[304] 'True socialism'—an ideological trend widespread in Germany in the mid-18405. The 'true socialists'—Karl Grün, Moses Hess, Hermann Kriege and others — indulged in the sentimental preaching of love and brotherhood and of pseudo-socialist ideas, and denied the need for political action and a revolution. Marx and Engels criticised this trend of the reactionary German petty bourgeoisie particularly in The German Ideology (see present edition, Vol. 5), in the Circular Against Kriege, German Socialism in Verse and Prose, and also in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Vol. 6).— 243
[306] to counterbalance the Turkish one on Bulgarian territory. Rustchuk, Shumla, Silistria and Varna were a stronghold where the main Turkish forces were concentrated at the outset of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78.— 244, 250 306 ( j n 15_16 (3-4) July 1877, after a fairly brief storming of the besieged Turkish fortress of Nikopol (southern bank of the Danube), its garrison headed by the commandant surrendered, and the Russian troops had no difficulty seizing the town. Varna had been captured by the Russian army on 11 October (29 September) 1828 during the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-29.—244
[308] A reference to the scandal involving General Galliffet and Madame de Beaumont. In all probability, Marx first learned about it from the Vorwärts, which on 6 April 1877 carried an item beginning with the words 'The Nemesis
[309] has grabbed another one by the hair!' in the 'Sozialpolitische Uebersicht'
[310] column. The author went on to say that about two weeks previously, at a ball in
[111] leading bodies of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany were the Executive
[311] Paris, in a fit of jealousy Galliffet had seriously wounded his mistress Mme de
[312] Beaumont, President Mac-Mahon's sister-in-law, and had consequently been
[195] Paris Commune, Marx became actively involved in the commissioning of a German translation of a book written by one of its members, Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune de 1871. He requested Wilhelm Bracke, and Engels asked Wilhelm Bios to find somebody to do the job. The sample translation done by Julius Grunzig failed to satisfy Marx, as did that by Isolde Kurz. Although Marx was already overburdened with work, he had to spend a great deal of time and effort editing the translation. In the autumn of 1877, on Marx's and Engels' proposal, Wilhelm Bios was recruited as another editor. Lissagaray's book appeared in German in Brunswick late in 1877.— 155, 172, 189, "l 96,' 222, 230, 262, 266, 285 19.) The general socialist congress held in Gotha from 19 to 23 August 1876 decided, at its meeting of 23 August, to publish a single organ of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, Vorwärts, that was lo replace Der Volksstaat and Der Neue Social-Demokrat. The congress elected Wilhelm Liebknecht and Wilhelm Hasenclever editors of the new paper, which was to appear from 1 October.— 155
[3 1 5] Engels is referring, above all, to the series of articles by Wilhelm Liebknecht 'Die Rothen wider die Blauen.' I-II , in which he sought to play down the impact made by the article 'Nieder mit der Republik!' that Hasenclever had published in the Vorwärts on 1 July 1877 (see Note 292).— 249
[145] Marx, On America and the Civil War. Edited and translated by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1972.—114, 250
[317] -T-ne decision to transfer the seat of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association from London to New York was taken at the Hague Congress of the International in September 1872.—251
[47] The French Marshal Bazaine, who had surrendered the Metz fortress in October 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war, was charged with high treason and sentenced to death in December 1873. Two days later, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In August 1874, after eight months in prison, Bazaine fled to Spain.—35, 251
[113] (Ausschuss). The Executive Committee elected at the Gotha Congress had five
[30] On 20 November 1873, the French National Assembly passed a law on the septennium, which allowed Mac-Mahon to hold the post of president of the republic for seven years (up to 20 November 1880). This signified consolidation of the President's individual power and bolstered the monarchists' position. The monarchist parties' attempts to have the National Assembly dissolved and the monarchy restored made in the summer of 1874 provoked indignation in republican quarters. Fearing an outburst on the part of the republican-minded masses, on 9 July Mac-Mahon issued an address to the Assembly stating that he would use all available means to retain the power granted him for the term of seven years. At the same time, he demanded an early introduction of new laws that would, to all intents and purposes, secure his dictatorship. Specifically, he demanded that the President be given a right to dissolve the Assembly, announce new elections and form the majority in parliament.— 23, 24
[318] A reference to Brogue's first term of office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from May 1873 to May 1874. Broglie's reactionary ministry declared the establishment of 'moral order' as its goal.—251
[319] "The Crystal Palace—a structure of metal and glass in London's H y d e Park built for the 1851 Great Exhibition and later used for various displays and shows.—252
[3 2 0] An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: Marx a n d Engels, On the United States, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979.— 254, 343
[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 1 6] In 1877, the United States witnessed large-scale workers' action against the industrialists. One of the major events was the railway workers' strike in July 1877 provoked by a 10 per cent wage cut on the three main west-bound railway-lines. The strike was suppressed by force.—251, 255
[3 2 2] At that time Wilhelm Liebknecht was serving a sentence in Leipzig prison (see Note 291).—256
[3 2 3] A reference to Vahlteich's speech at the anarchist congress in Berne on 27 October 1876. Present at the congress as a guest, he stated: 'We have neither Marxians nor Diihringians among us.' In an attempt to defend him, Liebknecht wrote to Engels on 21 July 1877: 'Vahlteich, certainly, made no such statement.'—257
[71] At the Gotha Congress, which met between 22 and 27 May 1875, the two trends in the German working-class movement — the Social-Democratic Workers' Party (the Eisenachers) led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Lassallean General Association of German Workers — united to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. This put an end to the split in the German working class. The draft programme of the united party, which Marx and Engels subjected to fierce criticism, was adopted by the congress with only insignificant amendments.—59, 69, 97, 257
[3 2 5] Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a newspaper of the German revolutionary proletariat, was published in Cologne during the 1848-49 revolution u n d e r the direct guidance of Marx and Engels. Its prospectus was drawn u p by Heinrich Bürgers, but his participation in the work of the editorial board was limited: he contributed only one article, and even that was revised by Marx. In late 1876, Bürgers had his 'Erinnerungen an Ferdinand Freiligrath' published in the Vossische Zeitung where he stated that a democratic newspaper in Cologne was initiated by him and Georg Weerth. In the final, fifth, chapter of his 'Erinnerungen' published in the Vossische Zeitung (No. 302) he wrote that Marx was the soul of the Communist League's Central Authority (Sunday-Supplement, No. 52, 24 December 1876).—259
[326] The original mentions an anarchist weekly, Le Travail, published in 1873 under the editorship of James Guillaume, its contributors also being the persons named in the letter.—259
[328] In a somewhat revised form, Engels included Quesnay's Tableau économique and comments on it in Anti-Diihring (see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 229-39).— 262
[331] In the original here follows Quesnay's Tableau économique.— 263
[334] In 'The War in the East' column, The Times, No. 29018 of 11 August 1877, carried an advertisement signed by Maltman Barry and dated 10 August. It related to the meeting scheduled for 13 August and a demonstration in support of Turkey and in protest against Russia's Eastern policies.—267
[336] moved through the Balkans towards Adrianople, but was later forced to retreat.— 272
[337] On 21-26 (9-14) August 1877, bloody battles were fought for the Shipka Pass. The Turkish army's attempt to capture it failed completely. Having sustained enormous losses, Suleiman-Pasha's army was forced to retreat.— 272
[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
[339] xhc Russo-Turkish war began on 24 (12) April 1877, and the Russians were preparing to cross the Danube in May. On 11 May (29 April) and the early morning of 26 (14) May, they sank the two largest Turkish vessels and crossed the Danube in late June.— 273
[41] the 1870s and the early 1880s, as the working-class movement began to grow,
[340] Wilhelm Liebknecht was unable to come to London after the Ghent Congress.— 274
[341] A reference to the English translation of Johann Most's pamphlet Kapital und Arbeit (see Note 154) done by Otto Weydemeyer from the second German edition of the work. It was originally published in the form of eleven extracts from Marx's Capital in the American weekly, The Labor Standard, between 30 December 1877 and 10 March 1878. In August 1878, the work appeared anonymously as a separate pamphlet.—276, 366
[343] Uriele Cavagnari failed to complete an Italian edition of the first volume of Capital. A concise exposition of the work in Italian was published by Carlo Cafiero in Milan in 1879. The work appeared in full in Turin in 1886.—277
[344] T n e t e nth annual British Trades' Union Congress took place in Leicester between 18 and 22 September 1877.—277
[345] On 11, 13, 17 and 18 September 1877, the Standard, under the general heading 'The International Working Men's Association', carried detailed accounts (From our own correspondent) of the Ghent Congress. Their author was most probably Maltman Barry.— 277
[346] Marx is referring to the joint invasion of Mexico by France, Britain and Spain in December 1861 with the aim of overthrowing the progressive government of Benito Juarez. However, the heroic resistance put up by the Mexican people forced the invaders to leave the country.— 278
[347] M a r x j s referring to the conflict between the monarchists and the republican majority in the Chamber of Deputies (see notes 30 and 283).— 278
[348] On 18 March 1876, Ferdinand Lingenau, a German socialist who had emigrated to the United States, bequeathed about $7,000 to the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, naming August Bebel, Johann Philipp Becker, Wilhelm Bracke, August Geib, Wilhelm Liebknecht and Karl Marx as executors. After his death on 4 August 1877, they tried to have his estate passed on to the party, but Bismarck managed to prevent this by applying diplomatic pressure.— 279, 393, 410
[349] In a letter to Engels of 8 October 1877, Ludwig Kugelmann wrote about Karl Ecker, 'the royal Prussian factory inspector' who wished to study the living conditions of British workers. Kugelmann advised Ecker to read the first volume of Marx's Capital and Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England, and suggested he get in touch with Engels personally.— 281
[351] Marx is referring to the article 'Die Folgen des großen Krachs' printed anonymously by the VorwartSj Nos 117 and 118 on 5 and 7 October 1877. On 19 July 1878, Sorge informed Marx in writing that its author was Adolph Douai.—284
[352] On 15 and 17 June and 10, 12, 14 and 17 October 1877, the Vorwärts (Nos 69, 70 and 119-22) carried a series of anonymous articles under the general heading 'Aus Heuchelland. Stille Beobachtungen eines Berliners in London'.— 284
[353] Blue Books—Parliament and Foreign Office documents and materials published in Britain since the 17th century. On the American edition to which Marx is referring, see Note 416.—284
[354] A reference to the Pennsylvanian miners' strike of 1874-75 which was shot
[357] Marx is referring to the Theories of Surplus Value which make up the bulk of his Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (see Note 62).— 287
[368] Engels is referring to the anarchists. Inability to agree about the final goals of the campaign, failures in practical work (the abortive anarchist putsches in Italy in 1874 and 1877) gave rise to substantial theoretical differences among them. At the congress of the so-called anarchist International in Verviers in 1877, the Bakuninists' statement that all political parties, including the socialists, were essentially reactionary, aroused vigorous protests from the Belgian, the French and some of the Italian delegates.— 294
[359] Referring to the Dühringians' speeches at the Gotha Congress of 1877 (see Note 286) in his letter to Marx of 30 October-6 November 1877, Bios inquired whether Marx and Engels were really angry with the party members in Germany. German workers, he wrote, were more interested in Marx's and Engels' articles in the press than ever. According to him, Marx and Engels were more popular than they could have imagined thanks to the activities of the Social-Democrats.—288
[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
[361] In his letter to Marx (see Note 359) Bios wrote that the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung had discussed 'Dr Marx's mutual combinations with Father Beckx'. Bios meant the newspaper's leading article, which had likened the activities of the international association of socialists, i.e., the International, to that of the Order of Jesuits, and Marx to its leader Beckx.— 289
[362] A reference to Ernst Dronke's infringement of the contract under which Engels
[356] Marx received the first part of Moses Hess' work Dynamische Stofflehre. I. Kosmischer Theil, Paris, 1877. The work was to have two more parts: the organic (Organischer Teil) and the social (Sozialer Teil). Nothing is known about the publication of the last two parts.— 286, 290
[363] rendered
[2 3 7] Regular elections to the German Reichstag were held on 10 January 1877. About half a million votes were cast for the socialist candidates of whom 12 were actually elected (see also Note 248).—186, 188, 190, 192, 197, 294, 447
[2 3 8] General conscription was introduced in Russia on 1 January 1874.—186, 187
[3] Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor, took a rest cure at Harrogate between 24 November and 15 December 1873.— 3, 17
[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
[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
[12] Marx's letter has not been found.—10, 31, 33, 34, 75, 176, 189, 193, 222, 270, 276, 311, 353, 376, 382, 412
[194] Considering it very important to familiarise workers with the true history of the
[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
[2 3 9] A 'sick man'—an expression used by Nicholas I with reference to Turkey in the talks of 9 January 1853 and in subsequent negotiations with George Hamilton Seymour, the British envoy.—191, 272
[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
[2 4 3] Marx is referring to M. Traube's principal achievement, the creation of 'artificial cells' (see Note 97).—192
[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
[249] From about 20 February to 17 March and in the second half of May 1877, Engels stayed in Brighton with his sick wife.—197, 198, 204, 207, 215, 232
[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
[201] The Alliance of Socialist Democracy was founded by Mikhail Bakunin in Geneva
[254] Marx means the editing of the German translation of Prosper Olivier Lissagaray's Histoire de la Commune de 1871, which occupied him between October 1876 and August 1877 (for details, see Note 194).—201, 269, 270, 285
[257] second congress of the Federation of Northern Italy under the heading of 'Congresso Socialista di Milano'. Marx is referring to Resolution III.— 203 237 Engels used the article 'Congresso Socialista di Milano' carried by La Plebe when working on his article 'From Italy' published by the Vorwärts, No. 32, 16 March 1877 (see present edition, Vol. 24).—203, 207
[258] Enclosed in Marx's letter to Engels of 5 March 1877 were Marx's 'Randnoten zu Dührings Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie'. The manuscript, which contains a critical analysis of the first three sections of the second edition of Diihring's book, was used by Engels as the basis for Chapter X, 'From Kritische Geschichte', of Part II of his Anti-Dühring (see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 211-43).—203, 205, 206, 207, 264
[96] An extract from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters on 'Capital', New Park Publications Ltd., London, 1983.—78, 205, 206, 207, 287, 308
[259] In February and March 1877, Marx provided the English journalist Maltman Barry with advice and materials. Barry was working on essays dealing with Gladstone's foreign policy that were published by several conservative papers. The Vanity Fair of 3 March 1877, for example, carried Barry's article 'Mr. Gladstone', and of 10 March its sequel, 'The Great Agitator Unmasked'.— 206, 209
[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
[261] The Tableau économique—François Quesnay's chart of the reproduction and circulation of the total social product — was first published as a short pamphlet in Versailles in 1758. Marx used Quesnay's Analyse du Tableau économique (first printed in 1766) contained in Eugène Daire's edition of Physiocrates. Première partie, Paris, 1846. Marx made an in-depth study of the Tableau économique in the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (see present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 204-40), in Chapter X of Part II of Anti-Dühring (ibid., Vol. 25, pp. 211-43), and in Capital, Volume Two, Chapter XIX (ibid., Vol. 36).—208,
[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
[264] At Marx's request, Pyotr Lavrov compiled a résumé of judicial and police persecution in Russia, which Marx passed on to the Irish M. P. Keyes O'Clery. The latter used the information in his speeches delivered in the House of Commons on 3 and 14 May 1877 (see MEGA2, Erste Abteilung, Band 25, S. 462). Pyotr Lavrov also wrote an article in French entitled 'La justice en Russie', which Marx helped to get printed in the British weekly Vanity Fair on 14 April 1877.—211, 213, 217, 221
[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
[267] Marx wrote this on a postcard. The address on the back is also in his hand: 'M. P. Lawroff, 21, Alfred Place, Tottenham Court Road. W.'.—216, 217, 225
[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
[272] In March 1877, the Romanian government agreed to let Russian troops pass through its territory. On 24 April Russia declared war on Turkey.—223, 228, 237
[275] In Mid-June 1877, Engels wrote a short biography of Marx which was published in the Volks-Kalender for 1878 (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 183-95).—227
[281] Russia declared war on Turkey on 24 April 1877 (see Notes 207 and 272) and conducted successful operations in the Caucasus.— 232, 234
[286] At the 29 May sitting of the Gotha Congress of the German Socialist Workers' Party (27-29 May 1877), Diihring's followers demanded that the publication of Engels' Anti-Dühring be stopped in the party's central organ. The proposal was made by Johann Most and Julius Vahlteich. August Bebel proposed that Engels' work appear as a separate edition rather than in the Vorwärts. Referring to the resolution of the 1876 congress concerning the publication of Engels' articles, Wilhelm Liebknecht suggested that they should be carried either by the scientific supplement to the Vorwärts or in the Zukunft magazine, or as separate pamphlets. Parts II and III of Anti-Dühring appeared in the supplement to the Vorwärts.—236, 238, 243, 258, 288, 420
[287] From 1872, Dühring, a lecturer at the University of Berlin, fiercely attacked university professors including Prof. Helmholtz, and also some aspects of university life. For this, he suffered reprisals at the hands of the reactionary professors and, in July 1877, on the insistence of the faculty of philosophy was deprived of the right to lecture. His followers launched a vigorous protest campaign, and the democratic quarters at large denounced his expulsion.— 236, 249, 257
[289] Engels and his sick wife stayed in Ramsgate between 11 July and 28 August 1877.—238, 240, 244, 271, 274, 280
[291] From 15 June to 15 August 1877 Liebknecht was serving a sentence of two months. In a letter to Engels despatched on 27 June from Leipzig prison, he wrote that as the editor of the Vorwärts and an organiser of the Social-Democrats' election campaign in the winter of 1876-77 he had had a multitude of charges brought against him, and this would entail several court trials.— 239, 243, 247, 275
[292] From 10 June 1877 the Vorwärts carried a series of articles covering the conflict between the monarchists and the republican majority in the French Chamber of Deputies and Mac-Mahon's attempt to effect a coup d'état (see Note 283). The first of them was an editorial 'Zum jüngsten Staatsstreich des Herrn Mac-Mahon'. The editorial board took a nihilist stand on these events, implying that it was immaterial to the proletariat whether it was campaigning under a bourgeois republic or a monarchy. These views were stated most directly in the editorial 'Nieder mit der Republik!' (Down with the Republic!) featured by the Vorwärts on 1 July 1877 and written, most probably, by Wilhelm Hasenclever.—239, 246, 294
[296] In his letters to Marx of 9 July and to Engels of 10 July 1877, Franz Wiede proposed that they contribute to the Neue Gesellschaft magazine he was planning to start (the first issue appeared in Zurich in October 1877). In a letter to Engels of 20 July 1877, Wiede asked for a speedy reply to his proposal.—240, 241, 247, 413
[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
[305] Engels is referring to the establishment of a quadrilateral of Russian fortresses
[307] Marx, accompanied by his wife and daughter Eleanor, took a course of treatment in Neuenahr (Germany) from 8 August 1877 and returned to London about 27 September.—245, 248, 250, 262, 265, 267, 273, 274, 275, 281, 305
[313] imprisoned. The Paris papers hushed up the scandal. The Vorwärts viewed this
[314] unsavoury story, with a hangman of the Paris Commune as its protagonist, as striking proof of the degeneration of bourgeois society. Marx learned the details of the scandal from Carl Hirsch, who arrived in London from Paris about 20 July.—246, 440 09 Palais de l'Elysée—the residence of the President of the French Republic in Paris.—246, 251 10 The words 'Here I am, here I remain' are ascribed to Mac-Mahon, who was supposed to have uttered them during the Crimean War, on 8 September 1855, in response to the suggestion that he retreat from the Malakhov Hill which he had seized and which was to be blown up by the Russians on 9 September.— 246 11 A reference to the constitutional conflict in Prussia that arose in February 1860 over the refusal of the bourgeois majority in the Lower Chamber of the Prussian Provincial Diet to endorse the army reorganisation project proposed by War Minister von Roon. However, the government soon managed to secure allocations from the Provincial Diet to 'maintain the army ready for action', which in fact meant the beginning of the planned reorganisation. When, in March 1862, the liberal majority of the Chamber refused to approve military spending and demanded a ministry accountable to the Provincial Diet, the government dissolved the Diet and announced new elections. The Bismarck Ministry was formed at the end of September 1862. In October, it again dissolved the Provincial Diet and began to carry out the military reform without the sanction of the Diet. The conflict was settled only in 1866 when, after Prussia's victory over Austria, the Prussian bourgeoisie gave in to Bismarck.— 247 12 A reference to the Party of Progress formed in June 1861 (its most eminent members were Waldeck, Virchow, Schulze-Delitsch, Forchenbeck and Hover-beck). The party's programme included the unification of Germany under the aegis of Prussia, the convocation of an all-German Parliament, and the formation of a strong liberal ministry accountable to the Chamber of Deputies. Fearing a popular revolution, the Party of Progress gave no support to the basic democratic demands — universal suffrage and freedoms of the press, association and assembly. In 1866 the party split, and its Right wing founded the National Libera] Party, which capitulated to the Bismarck government.— 247, 309, 351 13 On 20 July 1877 the Zukunft editors wrote to Marx and Engels inviting them to contribute to the magazine and referring to the relevant decision of the Gotha Congress to start a scientific review (see Note 314). The letters were signed 'The Zukunft editorial board' and gave the forwarding office of the Berliner Freie Presse, edited by Johann Most, as its address.—247, 249, 259, 362, 413 14 At its sitting on 29 May 1877 the Gotha Congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (see Note 286) approved August Geib's proposal to have a scientific review published twice monthly in Berlin starting on 1 October. It was decided that a fortnightly theoretical supplement to the Vorwärts was to appear up to that date. The first issue of Die Zukunft. Socialistische Revue came out in Berlin in October; its editor was Karl Höchberg, who worked under the p e n n a m e of R.-F. Seifert. H e sought to give the magazine a reformist slant.—249, 252, 254, 257
[3 2 1] O n 28 July 1877, Wilhelm Liebknecht asked Engels and Marx to become contributors to the Zukunft (see Note 313). H e wrote that the magazine was to be edited by 'bright young men', Höchberg and Wiede, and stressed that the editorial board would work under strict control from the party leadership.— 254, 257
[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
[324] The reference is to the international socialist congress in Ghent convened by the Belgian Proudhonists and the Swiss anarchists. They m a d e a fresh attempt to unite all the socialist organisations in Europe on their platform. Present at the congress, which took place between 9 and 16 September 1877, was a g r o u p of Marxist delegates, including Wilhelm Liebknecht, Johann Philipp Becker and Leo Frankel, who opposed the anarchists. The majority confirmed the resolutions of the Hague Congress of the International (1872) on the need to set u p national political parties in their own right in line with the principles of the International Working Men's Association.— 258, 270, 274, 277
[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
[333] Engels was in Ramsgate at the time (see Note 289), and between 5 and 21 September 1877, he and his wife were on holiday in Scotland.— 266, 271, 274, 280, 282
[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
[342] The planned US edition of the English translation of the first volume of Capital did not materialise. The first volume of Capital appeared in English in London only in 1887. The translation was done by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling with Engels' assistance.— 276, 283
[360] By t n e 'secret communist society' Marx means the League of the Just, a secret organisation of German political refugees set up in Paris in 1836-37. In January-February 1847 its members had talks with Marx and Engels, as a result of which they consented to join the League on the condition that it would be reorganised and an end be put to any personality cult. At the congress held in London between 2 and 9 June 1847 the League of the Just was renamed the Communist League. New Rules were drafted at this congress with the active participation of Marx and Engels. After the discussion by the Communist League's communities the Rules were considered by the second congress and finally approved on 8 December 1847 (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 585-88).—288
[355] down by troops.— 284 35a 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].—286, .290