1878
My dear Friend,
I hope one good thing the new year will do — act beneficently upon your health.
My best thanks for the Owen addresses and proclamations.[3]
The Trafalgar Square meeting of Friday last was much more important than the newspaper reports would make it appear.[364]
There was a gathering of at least 15,000-20,000 people. The Russian party, as represented by the Honourable Bradlaugh, Hales, Mottershead, Osborne, etc., was forced, after a tremendous hand to hand fight, to evacuate the place with torn dresses, swollen eyes and broken noses. A dozen wounded were delivered to the next hospital. John Bull came out as a true bull and not as a lamb. The Turkish party was in overwhelming majority. Entre nous, I had somewhat my hand in getting up this demonstration, as, in point of fact, I have since many, many months acted through some British workmen and ci-devant b workmen upon the very diversified layers of the Pro-Turkishers. But, of course, if I had made the least public move, the whole thing would have been spoilt. In such national affairs no foreigner must appear. If he thinks it his duty to do something, he must do so secretly, behind the scenes, by a few natives upon whose discretion he can rely. One day I shall tell you [about] the very strange relations into which I have thus entered with British Grandees who would get into a white rage if they had the least suspicion under whose advice they were acting.
207. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 11 January
I have received letters and prints from Russia.[363] The misery now prevailing there is truly shocking. Save the governmental dependents and the by no means strong fraction of Pan-Slavists, discontent is universal. They had hoped peace would be at once concluded after the fall of Plevna.[350]
As to Turkey, the great danger for her is Mahmud Damad who alone is responsible for the failure of the first campaign. This fact is known at Constantinople, and I wonder whether some fanatical Softas[156] will not have the good sense to 'extinguish' that scoundrel. As Hobbes said: The equality of men is proved by this ... that the smallest man, the weakest man, can in one way or other kill the tallest, the biggest one."
Apart from all incidents of war, with the help of that model administration the Russians owe, the winter in Bulgaria will decimate their army. Already all their pontoon-bridges, save that of Zimnicea[366] (which also will not stand the repeated attacks of the Danube ice), are swept away, and, by the by, they will be cut off from Wallachia.
In France the Dufaure cabinet will not last long. The discovery of the military conspiracy will kill it.[367]
The whole family send you their new year wishes and you know that they come from the heart.
Yours most devotedly,
Karl Marx
207
ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
IN GENEVA
London, 11 January 1878 Dear Old Man,
Avant tout,b a Happy New Year to you, and may it bring you less in the way of troubles and burdens than the previous one!
The package eventually arrived a few days ago.(1) My best thanks. I have not quite finished looking through the Bulletin jurassien; I find it interesting to follow the decline of that gang and its ultimate relegation to the back of the stage as a result of our electoral victories of 10 January 1877.[237] Let them now scheme and snarl to their heart's content; they've gone to pot and there they will remain.[368]
You will be receiving from the post office a money order for 50 frs which you should regard as our contribution to the Précurseur. In accordance with the new regulations, I have to retain over here the receipt they gave me; the money order, or so they tell me, will be sent to you from Basle.
We are pretty well. Marx is notably better as compared with former years; his wife is not quite up to the mark, but the doctorb
promises a complete cure; I myself cannot complain.
Things seem to be going very well indeed for you people in Switzerland; the formation of a workers' party is a great step forward [369] and, even if the programme isn't nearly radical enough for the taste of Messieurs les Bakounistes, it doesn't matter a damn. A party that has the political means to take a direct part in the struggle, and the prospect of soon being able to throw a not inconsiderable weight into the scales, as is the case in Switzerland, has better things to do than to force each individual collaborator to accept its ultimate aims as dogma. There is, of course, much room for improvement in the programme, but it was modelled on the garrulous programme concocted in Germany at the time of the unification.[121]
In Germany, too, big mistakes were made, in particular as regards the attitude adopted — in a spirit altogether Bakuninist— towards the French crisis.[292] And yet on this occasion we again saw how far ahead of us France has come in matters of practice. Lousy though the solution may have so far proved to be, it is nevertheless the first time that anything has been achieved there without a violent upheaval[367]—and violence there, so soon after the bloodbath of 1871, could only lead to the revival of repression and of Bonapartism. But as it is, there is every prospect that the workers will very shortly gain freedom of the press, the right of association and assembly and whatever else is requisite for organisation and struggle, and that is all they need to begin with. They are in a position to discover where they stand theoretically, as is most necessary, and at last, when the opportunity presents itself, to enter the revolution as a tightly knit party and with a definite programme. And then again, the debonapartisation and republicanisation of the peasants, which is now in full swing, is another tremendous gain. And, lastly, the decisive point was reached because the common soldier declared he would not fight—the collapse of militarism has begun from within and may soon find a sequel in Germany, especially if present policy should make it necessary to lead the army into the field in support of the Russians.
Another big mistake in Germany is to have allowed students and other ignorant 'scholars', in the guise of scientific representatives of the party, to flood the world at large with vast quantities of the most arrant nonsense. However, this is a childish ailment which has to be got over, and it is precisely in order to hasten it on that I made such a thorough example of Diihring.[3]
That apart, things are going quite splendidly there as well and, if they now really get cracking with their anti-Russian agitation, it might prove very effective.
Apropos, B'uffenoir, whom the Vorwärts is presently making such a fuss of,370 is a somewhat ambiguous individual; in the first place, he's a clericalist, in the second he has recently eulogised Gambetta in effusive poetical verse and has no standing whatever amongst the workers of Paris. Another instance of Liebknecht's getting himself into a mess.
I hope the peace terms proposed by the Russians will be such that the war will go on. Not having any bridges over the Danube, their army is cut off and might starve miserably if the weather stays bad. And an undecided war, or fresh defeats, would undoubtedly give rise to revolution in Petersburg. Initially started by the court and constitutional, in other words 1789 preceding 1793.[371] Just let a national assembly convene in Petersburg, and the whole of Europe will assume a different aspect.
Your old friend
F. E.
208. Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 4 February
208
MARX TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT[372]
IN LEIPZIG
[London,] 4 February 1878 [373]
... We are most decidely espousing the Turkish cause and for 2 reasons:
1. because we have studied the Turkish peasant—i.e. the mass of the Turkish people — and in this way have come to see him as indubitably one of the ablest and most moral representatives of the peasantry in Europe;
2. because the defeat of the Russians would have greatly expedited social revolution in Russia, of which all the elements are present in abundant measure, and hence radical change throughout Europe.
Things took a different course. Why? In consequence of England's and Austria's treachery.
England—I mean the English government — came, for example, to the rescue of the Serbs when they had been beaten[176]; by misrepresenting the facts, she caused the Turks to suspend hostilities in the erroneous belief that the Russians had proffered an armistice (through England) of which the first condition was the aforesaid suspension. It was this alone that enabled the Russians to win their final spate of victories.[374] Otherwise their armies would have been decimated by hunger and cold; only the opening up of the way to Rumelia where supplies were to be had (i.e. taken) and where, furthermore, the climate was milder, permitted them to escape from the mousetrap in Bulgaria, cram-full with soldiers, and pour their hordes into the south. Disraeli was (and still is) hamstrung in his own cabinet by the Marquis of Salisbury, Russian agent and confidant of Ignatiyev, by the Grand Cophta[375] OF COMMONPLACE — EARL OF Derby — and by the EARL OF Carnarvon, who has since resigned.
Austria prevented the Turks from enjoying the fruits of their victories in Montenegro, etc.[376]
Finally — and this is one of the main reasons for their ultimate defeat—the Turks failed to stir up revolution in Constantinople, thus allowing that incarnation of the old Seraglio régime — Mahmud Hamad—brother-in-law to the Sultan,(1) to remain the real power behind the war — exactly the same thing as actually entrusting the Russian cabinet with the conduct of the war against itself. The systematic paralysing and compromising of the Turkish army by this laddie can be demonstrated down to the smallest detail. Come to that, everyone in Constantinople is aware of it and this increases the historical guilt of the Turks. A people incapable of resolute revolutionary action at moments of intense crisis such as this is doomed. The Russian government knew what Damad was worth to them; it brought more strategy and tactics to bear on keeping Midhat Pasha away from Constantinople and Damad at the helm than on the capture of Plevna.[350]
The man behind the Russian victory was, of course, Bismarck. He was responsible for the Alliance of the Three Emperors[143]
whereby Austria was kept quiet. Even after the fall of Plevna all Austria would have had to do was marshal 100,000 men — and the Russians would have been compelled quietly to withdraw or to content themselves with the paltriest of spoils. From the start, Austria's abdication gave the Russian party in England the upper hand, France (as a result of the post-Sedan catastrophe— catastrophe after Sedan[113]—engineered by the then premier, Mr Gladstone) having ceased to exist in English eyes as a continental military power.
The consequence will simply be the dissolution of Austria, which is inevitable if the Russian peace terms be accepted and this means that Turkey (at least in Europe) will continue to exist in name only. Turkey was Austria's barrier against Russia and her retinue of Slavs. So presumably at the first appropriate moment there'll be a call for 'Bohemia'.
But Prussia qua Prussia — i.e. as specifically opposed to Germany — also has interests of a different kind: Prussia as such is her dynasty, she has come to be and is what she is on Russia's 'warranty'. The defeat of Russia, revolution in Russia, would ring Prussia's death-knell.
For otherwise, after the great victory over France, after Prussia had become the leading military power in Europe, we may presume that not even Mr von Bismarck would have assigned her the same position vis-à-vis Russia as she had occupied in 1815 as a supernumerary on the political stage of Europe.
Finally, to panjandrums such as Bismarck, Moltke, etc., the prospect of personal eminence held out by the succession of European wars now beginning ... is by no means a matter of indifference.
It goes without saying that Prussia must, as occasion arises, demand 'compensation' for the Russian victories which she alone
209. Marx to Thomas Allsop. 4 February
made possible. This is already plainly evident from the behaviour of the Russians vis-à-vis the Romanian government which had gone to the rescue of those same Russians at Plevna before Muscovite reinforcements arrived. Karl von Hohenzollern is now to demonstrate his gratitude by handing back the part of Bessarabia ceded by the Russians after the Crimean War.[378] That this will not be permitted out of hand by Berlin, Petersburg is aware, and is prepared to make HANDSOME compensation.
But there are other aspects to all this. Turkey and Austria were the last bulwarks of the old European political order that was patched up again in 1815; with their downfall it will suffer total collapse. This debacle — which will take the form of a series of ('localised' and ultimately 'general') wars — will precipitate the social crisis—-and with it the decline of all these sabre-rattling SHAM POWERS.
209
MARX TO THOMAS ALLSOP
IN LONDON
[Extract]
[London,] 4 February 1878
You are mistaken, if you believe that Disraeli is in my opinion a great man. He was always a self-seeker, and such people, whatever their natural gifts, are always deficient. But, dans le royaume des aveugles les borgnes, etc.(1)!
You are still more mistaken, if you consider Lord Commonplaceb
as a small man or an adversary easily to be borne down! He is, on the contrary, the mightiest man in the British Empire. On the one hand, the oldest nobility man, on the other the intellectual incarnation of the great middle-class. Business is business—this is the only serious part of your bourgeois: everything else is
210. Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 11 February
show—and must, consequently, be got rid of by mild talk, conventional utterances, inane twaddle. What a power, therefore, the Lord of Commonplace! If an Earl of Derby did not exist, the decaying nobility and the upstart brokers ought to have invented him...[379]
Turkey and Austria were the last props of the old State System of Europe... It will go now altogether to the wall, expiring in a succession of wars, which will precipitate the Social Crisis and engulf all the so-called Powers, those sham-powers, victors and vanquished — to make room for a European Social Revolution.
One way or another our enemies are digging their own graves!
210
MARX TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT[52]
IN LEIPZIG
[London,] 11 February 1878[373]
At least something worthwhile has been achieved by the Russians; they have exploded England's 'great Liberal Party' and rendered it incapable of governing for some time to come, while the Tory Party has gone to the trouble of officially bringing about its own demise through the medium of those traitors Derby and Salisbury (the latter being the real pro-Russian force within the Cabinet).[3]
The English working class had gradually become ever more demoralised as a result of the period of corruption after 1848, and had finally reached the stage of being no more than an appendage of the great Liberal Party, i.e. of its oppressors, the capitalists. Its direction had passed completely into the hands of the venal TRADES UNION leaders and professional agitators. In the wake of the Gladstones, Brights, Mundellas, Morleys, and the whole gang of factory owners, etc., these laddies ranted and roared in majorem gloriamb of that emancipator of the nations, the Tsar,c while never raising a finger on behalf of their own brethren in South Wales, condemned by the mine-owners to death by starvation.[380] The wretches! And to crown it all in worthy fashion, during the recent divisions in the House of Commons (on 7 and 8 February, when most of the chief dignitaries of the 'great Liberal Party'—Forster, Lowe, Harcourt, Goschen, Hartington and even (on 7 February) the great John Bright himself — left their army in the lurch and made off during the division so as not to compromise themselves unduly by voting[381]), the only labour representatives in the House of Commons and they, horribile dictu* direct representatives of the miners, and themselves miners born and bred, namely Burt and the pitiful Macdonald, voted with those pro-Tsar enthusiasts, the rump of the 'great Liberal Party'!
But the rapid unfolding of Russia's plans suddenly broke the spell, disrupting the 'mechanical agitation' (of whose mechanism five pound notes were the mainspring); at this moment it would have been 'physically dangerous' for Mottershead, Howell, John Hales, Shipton, Osborne and all the rest of the crew to make their voices heard at a public workers' meeting; even their 'CORNER and TICKET MEETINGS' are forcibly disbanded and broken up by the populace.
But it will take your ponderous 'Anglo-Saxon' too long to wake up — in time, at any rate, for the next events...
Russian diplomacy is very far from sharing the fatuous 'Christian' prejudices against the 'Crescent'. Turkey, reduced in Europe to Constantinople and a small part of Rumelia, but with a compact hinterland in Asia Minor, Arabia, etc., is to be shackled to Russia by means of an offensive and defensive alliance.
During the last campaign the 120,000 Poles in the Russian army rendered sterling service[382]; now the Poles are to be joined by Turks—and the Russians will have under their flag the two bravest races of Europe, who have to avenge themselves on Europe for their humiliation — not a bad idea!
In 1829 Prussia—but at that time she was still no more than the biggest of Europe's small states and the self-confessed protégée of Russia[383]—acted just as she is doing now.
The desperate situation in which the Russian army found itself after Diebitsch had led it over the Balkans (July 1829) has been well described by Moltke}[1] Only diplomacy could have saved it.
The second campaign was on the point of turning out as badly as the first[384]—and then finis Russiae—it would be all up with Russia. That is why Nicholas, the Tsar, went to Berlin on 10 June 1829, allegedly in order to attend the wedding of Prince William of Prussia (the present German emperor). He asked Frederick William III (he 'of the conqueror's crown[2]) to prevail upon the Porte to send him plenipotentiaries so as to open peace negotiations. At that time Diebitsch had not yet crossed the Balkans, the greater part of his army being pinned down outside Silistria and Shumla." In concert with Nicholas, Frederick William III officially ordered Baron Muffling to Constantinople as envoy extraordinary, the intention being, however, that he should act as Russia's agent there. Muffling was of pure Russian stock, as he himself relates in Aus meinem Leben: he had drafted the Russian campaign plan in 1827 and indeed insisted that Diebitsch should march over the Balkans coûte que coûte (whatever the cost), while he, as peace mediator, conducted intrigues in Constantinople. He himself says that the Sultan,c alarmed by such a march, would appeal to him as a friend'.d
Under the pretext of assuring the peace of Europe, he succeeded in getting France and England to eat out of his hand — in particular the latter country, by exerting influence through the Russophil English ambassador, Robert Gordon, on the latter's brother, the EARL OF Aberdeen, and through him on Wellington—who was later bitterly to rue it. After Diebitsch had crossed the Balkans, he was gratified to receive a letter from Reshid Pasha dated 25 July (1829) inviting him to open the peace negotiations. On that same day, Muffling had his first discussion with Reis Effendi (Turkish Minister of the Exterior)e whom he intimidated by the vehemence of his address (à la Prince Reussf); he also invoked Gordon, etc. The Sultan gave way to the pressure of the Prussian ambassador (who was supported by Gordon, the English, and Guilleminot, the French ambassador, both of whom had been briefed by Muffling) and accepted the following 5 peace terms: 1. Integrity of the Ottoman Empire; 2. retention of the former treaties between the Porte and Russia; 3. adherence of the Porte to the Treaty of London (concluded 6 July 1827) between France, England and Russia for the regulation of Greek affairsiSa; 4. firm undertakings as regards the freedom of shipping in the Black Sea; 5. further negotiations between Turkish and Russian chargés d'affaires relating to indemnification and any other claim either party might make.
On 28 August Sadek Effendi[3] and Abdul Kader Bey, the two Turkish plenipotentiaries, accompanied by Küster (attaché at the Prussian Embassy in Constantinople), arrived at Adrianopleb where the Russians had set up their general headquarters about a week previously. Diebitsch opened negotiations on 1 September without waiting for the arrival of the Russian plenipotentiaries (Alexei Orlov and Pahlen), who had got no further than Burgas.
But while negotiations were in progress, Diebitsch's troops continued their advance on Constantinople. Insolent and overbearing (despite or rather because of the rottenness of his position), he gave the Turkish plenipotentiaries a week's deadline by which to assent to the following points:
The fortresses of Braila, Giurgevoc and Calafat to be razed and the places themselves to be incorporated into Wallachia. Anapa and Poti, on the Black Sea, to be ceded to Russia; also the Pashalik of Akhaltsikhe; reparations amounting to 700,000 'purses' (some 120 million francs), payment to be guaranteed by handing over Silistria and the Danubian principalities'[1] as a pledge to Russia. Indemnification of Russian merchants to the tune of some 15 million francs for losses sustained, payable on three appointed dates after each of which the Russian army would withdraw, first to the foot of the Balkans, then to the north of those mountains and, finally, across the Danube.
The Porte objected to these terms which were so greatly at variance with the Tsar'se assurances of moderation. The new Prussian ambassador Royer (Muffling had absconded on 5 September, after completing his fell assignment — he, the 'friend to the Porte' and the angel of peace), in company with General Guilleminot, Müffling's dupe, and Sir Robert Gordon, supported the protests of the Porte, for insolence such as this ran counter to the agreement and was even too much for him 'of the conqueror's crown'. Diebitsch knew that militarily speaking he was in a tight corner and made bogus concessions: in the public peace treaty, the article concerning the amount of war reparations would be withdrawn; the first instalment of the indemnification of Russian merchants was reduced for, as the Turkish envoys said: 'The most ignorant must know that the Porte could not pay.' Peace was finally concluded on 5 September.[386]
Great sensation in Europe, great indignation in England; Wellington fumed; even Aberdeen drew attention in a despatch to the danger lurking in every single clause of the treaty, and endeavoured to bring about a general alliance whereby all the great powers (including Russia) would guarantee peace in the Orient. Austria was willing; but Prussia frustrated the project, and saved Russia from the dangers a European congress would present to her. (France, where Charles X was preparing his coup d'état, entered into a secret understanding with Russia; a secret treaty was also concluded, whereby France was to receive the Rhine Provinces*
Under these circumstances there was no need for Nesselrode to beat about the bush; he sent an insolent and contemptuous despatch to the English Cabinet, i.e. a despatch addressed to Count Lieven (the Russian ambassador) in London.
This is what Prussia did at the time and has now done again on a grander scale. Fine Hohenstaufens — these Hohenzollerns! Statesmanship presented no difficulties to Bismarck in the Austrian and French affair; against Austria, he had Bonaparte's protection and the Italians, and against France, the whole of Europe. Moreover, the goal to which he aspired had been determined by the circumstances, which had paved the way to its attainment.
Now that circumstances have become more complex, he is a genius no longer.(1)
211. Marx to Sigmund Schott. 29 March
211
MARX TO SIGMUND SCHOTT[388]
IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN
London, 29 March 1878 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sir,
I have, though somewhat belatedly, obtained Volume IV (Indus-trieactien) of the SALING, to which you so kindly drew my attention. I did not wish to reply to your letter until I had at length had time to run through the thing, and have found it very useful.
I have tried, without success, to obtain via the booksellers the second volume of Glagau* (it has probably been banned), and also Rudolph Meyer's book on account of which he has been prosecuted. Since the said Meyer has cited me in court as a competent witness to the 'scholarship' of his work he ought, if only for decency's sake, to have sent it me to look at.
Finally, I have one more thing to ask of you, namely to be so kind, provided it is not too time-consuming, as to let me have a list of the names of Perrot's published writings on the subject of joint-stock companies, etc.c
From Petersburg Mr Kaufman has sent me (Russian text) his bulky tome on the Theory and Practice of Banks,d likewise his History of the Bank of England etc.e So far I have only read the first -named. Written in a 'high-falutin' style, with considerable self-important pretensions to absolute 'scholarship', it is an enthusiastic apology for the economy of Gründung[118] and swindling. Yet such writings are most beneficial, for the apology, in so far as it has any real content, and all unbeknown to its author, ends up by demonstrat-ing for good or ill, and contrary to the moralising philistine, the correlation between the necessary product of the present system of production itself and what your philistine condemns as 'abuse', 'malpractice', etc.
I used to subscribe to the Frankfurter Zeitung, but do so no longer because of its 'Swiss' standpoint which alone can account
212. Marx to Valerian Smirnov. 29 March
for its lunatic flights of fancy on the subject of the oriental imbroglio. But now a friend of mine in Germany[3] is persecuting me by occasionally sending me what he believes to be an interesting issue of the paper. From what little (but nevertheless still 'over-much') that has thus come my way, it seems to me that a marked change is occurring in the line taken by the paper. Is this the case, or is it not? Has Mr Sonnemann shifted further to the 'right'?
I trust that you are having better weather than we are. Since my return from Germany in mid-September[307] I have suffered from a permanent cough, etc.
With kindest regards I am, Sir,
Yours sincerely,
Karl Marx
212
MARX TO VALERIAN SMIRNOV[389]
IN LONDON
[London,] 29 March 1878 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. Dear Smirnov,
I take it that you are still editor of the Bnepedi>!,b and therefore that this note will find you at the address I have selected.
Party friends in Paris have asked me for information about two agitators within our societies in Paris, namely a 'Prince Kropotkin' and a lady, one 'Kulishova', a particular friend of Costa's.
Do you, perhaps, know anything about these individuals from the political aspect?
Yours very faithfully,
Karl Marx
213. Engels to Carl Hirsch. 3 April
213
ENGELS TO CARL HIRSCH
IN PARIS •«: London, 3 April 1878
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Hirsch,
Would you be so kind as to forward the enclosed note[3] to Lopatin? We don't know whether the old address we have for him still holds good.b It has to do with an article for Bracke's Kalender on the condemned Russians.[390]—The Égalité hasn't been arriving for some time past; I hope nothing has happened to it. With the suspension of the Bulletin jurassienc for want of money, the Bakuninists' swaggering has come to an inglorious end. It's encouraging to see the movement growing so powerful that it can sweep aside every one of these rubbishy factions without undue difficulty. As soon as I have a complete set of them here I shall send you some articles of mine on the movement in 1877,d which have appeared in the New York Labor Standard. As regards Dühring, I've all but finished now. No doubt you will shortly see something more about his 'socialism' in the Vorwärts.[11] This worthy man has cost me an atrocious amount of time, but unfortunately there was no [alternative], it being a case of all or nothing. Precious chaps, these anarchists! That great enemy of the state, Adhémar Schwitzguébel, Guillaume's right-hand man, who would rather chop off his own hand than place a voting-paper in a ballot box, is an officer dans l'armée fédérale[1]', as the Bulletin jurassien itself declares. Kindest regards to all our friends, especially Kaub and Mesa.
Yours very sincerely,
F. E.
215. Marx to Thomas Allsop. 28 April
214. Engels to Hermann Lopatin. 3 April[391]
... My warmest regards to Lavrov. I was glad to see that his excellent article in the last issue of Bnepedh!" had been translated for the Vorwärts; it will not be without effect.[392] Unfortunately my eye is in rather a delicate condition, which prevents my reading Russian; Russian characters always hurt my eye; let's hope it doesn't persist...
215
MARX TO THOMAS ALLSOP
IN EXMOUTH (DEVON)
[Postcard]
[London,] 28 April 1878
My dear and honoured Friend,
Mrs Marx is continually changing, sometimes up, then again down. As soon as the weather becomes more congenial, she must, of course, leave London.
Meanwhile we all hope to enjoy soon the pleasure to see you here.
I have received a whole lot of latest 'Russian' publications from Petersburg.[365] They bear witness to a great internal commotion.
216. Engels to Wilhelm Bracke. 30 April
Bismarck seems to break rapidly down, bodily and otherwise.
Yours most devotedly,
K. M.
216
ENGELS TO WILHELM BRACKE[96]
IN BRUNSWICK
London, 30 April 1878
Dear Bracke,
Herewith Lissagaray's receipt for the 300 marks which he has changed into £15 at a loss of approx. 6 marks against gold at par, doubtless so that he should not have to acknowledge Bismarck's currency reform.[393]
I think that in taking the view you do of the Imperial railways and the tobacco monopoly[394] you may be looking a bit too far ahead. Aside from the enormous increase of power that would accrue to Prussian dominion, on the one hand through total financial independence of any control, on the other through direct command of two new armies, that of railway officials and that of tobacco sellers, and the consequent power to confer appointments and engage in corruption — aside from all that, it must not be forgotten that nowadays any transfer of industrial and commercial functions to the state may, depending on the circumstances, have a twofold purport and a twofold effect: one reactionary, a step back into the Middle Ages, one progressive, a step forward towards communism." We in Germany, however, have only just crept out of the Middle Ages and are only this moment engaged in entering modern bourgeois society through the medium of large-scale industry and the crash.[395] In our case, what needs to be developed to the highest possible degree is precisely that bourgeois economic régime which concentrates capitals and accentuates contradictions, notably in the north-east. To my mind the economic dissolution of feudal conditions east of the Elbe is, for us, the most essential step forward, along with the dissolution throughout Germany of small businesses in industry and the crafts and their replacement with large-scale industry. And, after all, the only good thing about a tobacco monopoly is that, at one stroke, it would change one of the most infamous cottage industries into large-scale industry. On the other hand, the state tobacco workers would also at once become subject to exceptional laws and, still worse, deprived of the liberty to associate or strike. In our case the Imperial railways and the tobacco monopoly are not of necessity state industries — the railways not yet, at any rate, whereas in England they are only just coming to be so; posts and telegraphs, on the other hand, are. And by way of compensation for all the disadvantages those two new state monopolies would bring us, we'd simply get a handy new expression to use in agitation. For a state monopoly that is set up simply for reasons of money and power, not out of compelling and intrinsic necessity, wouldn't even provide us with a proper argument. And the process of setting up a tobacco monopoly and abolishing the cottage tobacco industry would, what's more, take at least as long as Bismarckism can possibly hope to survive. Again, you may be sure that the Prussian state would both debase the quality of tobacco and raise the price to such an extent that the adherents of free competition would gleefully point to this discrediting of state communism, and the people would be forced to agree with them. The whole thing is an ignorant fancy of Bismarck's altogether worthy of his plan of 1863 to annex Poland and Germanise her within three years.
Had I known that the Party of Progress[312] had for years been proposing [the abolition of] tax exemption for the military, I should have advised you against bringing the motion in question. To my mind, our function is to support bourgeois demands only when the bourgeois parties fail to do what they damned well ought to; but judging by your own speech, this does not appear to have been quite the case. I merely mention this on account of Richter's reply.[396] Naturally I don't dispute for one moment that our airing of the question may have great advantages as regards propaganda, though I can't, needless to say, give an unqualified verdict from here.
I've now finished Mr Dühring, fortunately, apart from the revision of the final articles,[3] and trust I shall have no more of his
217. Marx to Carl Hirsch. 26 June
esteemed company while on this earth. What a conceited ignoramus! If the rest isn't printed quickly, it won't be my fault. Kind regards.
Yours,
F. Engels
An excerpt from this letter was first published in: F. Engels, Politisches Ver-mächtnis. Aus unveröffentlichten Briefen, Berlin, 1920; first published in full, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
217
MARX TO CARL HIRSCH
IN PARIS
[London,] 26 JUNE 1878
Dear Hirsch,
I cannot lay hands here on Bucher's reply in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine? The Frankfurter0 is said to have reprinted it.[397]
Kindly send it to me by return.
Yours very truly,
Karl Marx
218. Marx to Sigmund Schott. 13 July
219. Marx to Sigmund Schott. 15 July
218
MARX TO SIGMUND SCHOTT
IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN
[London,] 13 July 1878
Dear Friend,
Having had no word whatsoever from Germany, I should particularly like to know whether you got the letter.[12] I wrote you immediately on receipt of yours.
I don't even get newspapers if they are addressed to me in my name.
If you have not received my letter, perhaps you would be good enough to write in future (without further particulars as to the addressee) to Edwin Willis, Esq., 40 Maitland Park Crescent, London, N. W.
Yours truly,
K. M.
219
MARX TO SIGMUND SCHOTT
IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN
[London,] 15 July 1878
Dear Friend,
I got your letter on the very day I had already sent you a brief note" by a roundabout route.
In your last letter but one (of 30 June), you asked me nothing save whether some of the comments in the German press on my first epistle to The Daily Newsb had reached me. Answer: no.
220. Engels to Valerian Smirnov. 16 July
I would not dream of dedicating a 'book' to Mr Bûcher. He owes me an answer to my '30' lines.[3] I have neither the time nor any reason to supply the '3,000' lines he deems necessary in place of his own.[398] This fable is the progeny of the London correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung, he, so far as I am aware, being Dr Elard Biscamp, a notorious blackguard.[399] This time, however, his bad joke has come off.
The state of my health bids me go to Karlsbad. But Mr Bismarck, who was so urgently bidden to go to Kissingen, doesn't want me to.[29] H TO 4"L\aTb? (que faire?b), as the Russians say.[400]
Look round for a makeshift in the shape of a British seaside resort not as yet under the aegis of the new Holy Alliance's[143] saviours of society. My wife is seriously ill and will probably have to go to Karlsbad; it seems unlikely that her ex-ladyship, the ex-Baroness von Westphalen, will be regarded as contraband.
I trust your trip will do you good. Should you spend any length of time in one place, you might write to me from there. I shall probably have an article of mine in English (not yet printed)c to send you which, however, will have absolutely nothing to do with the good 'FATHERLAND', AS THE ENGLISH CALL IT.
With kindest regards,
[8] Yours,
Karl Marx
220
ENGELS TO VALERIAN SMIRNOV
IN LONDON
[London,] 16 July 1878 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W. My dear Mr Smirnov,
Yesterday I sent you a copy of my anti-Dühring pamphlet[401]
which I trust you have received.
221. Engels to Oscar Schmidt. 19 July
I also wished to send copies both to Lopatin and to Lavrov, but I do not know whether Lopatin is still in Switzerland, nor the present address of either of them in Paris. If you could tell me to what addresses I should send the pamphlets, I should be most obliged to you.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
221
ENGELS TO OSCAR SCHMIDT
IN STRASBOURG
[Draft]
[London, 19 July 1878]
Dear Sir,
In yesterday's no. of Nature I see an announcement of a lecture to be given by you at the natural scientists' conference in Kassel 'on the relation of Darwinism to Social Democracy'.[402]
That the advocates of Darwinism in Germany would not be able to evade the necessity of adopting a position vis-à-vis the socialist world outlook was something socialists had foreseen long before Mr Virchow so amiably tipped the wink.40S Whatever that position may turn out to be, it can only contribute to the clarification of the situation and of men's minds. On the other hand, it is desirable from both points of view that this should be done in full awareness of the facts.
By way of making a contribution of my own, I am taking the liberty of sending you by post a copy of my work Herr Eugen
Diihring's etc., which has just come out.[401] In it, I have endeavoured to give, among other things, an outline of the relation of scientific socialism to the propositions of modern theoretical natural science in general, and to Darwin's theory in particular. The passages relating to Darwinism are marked.
222. Engels to Philipp Pauli. 30 July
With your permission, I shall in due course and from my own standpoint subject your lecture to the kind of ruthless criticism which alone does justice to free science and which any man of science must welcome, even when applied to himself.[404]
222
ENGELS TO PHILIPP PAULI
IN RHEINAU
London, 30 July 1878
Dear Pauli,
Let us hope our people will today do their duty, as we are entitled to expect after all that has happened.[405] Since Bismarck has perpetrated the colossal bloomer of trying to exploit all that shooting business to topple the liberals, and is now using the socialists simply as a pretext,[406] it is with even greater pleasure that we can observe the champions of law and order squabbling amongst themselves. I cannot comprehend Bismarck; his 'nerves' must have gone completely to pieces, together with what little intelligence he still had. Passe encore* that he should fail to see that what his Bonapartist game effectually boils down to is the alternate playing off of the workers against the bourgeois and of the bourgeois against the workers, thus doing both in the eye. But it's plain madness for him to want to overthrow the liberals, those 'we are but dogs'[407] yes-men who will go on licking the boot that kicks them up the backside in return for a bare minimum of cajolery — those liberals who are his only protection against the out-and-out feudal-orthodox-reactionary court — and thus to deliver himself up irrevocably to the reactionaries, the very people he has betrayed and persecuted and by whom he is mortally detested. And he calls himself a 'statesman'! And proposes to bring about the downfall of the socialists by means of a policy that
'•' It's not so bad can benefit no one save the socialists! Were the worthy fellow in our pay, he could not work better on our behalf. What is more, he actually postpones the sitting of the Reichstag until the last moment, simply in order that the anti-socialist battue may have time to peter out, the bourgeois to. become ashamed of his abject role of denouncer, and the parties of law and order to fall so thoroughly foul of each other as to lose all hope of sorting themselves out again. And while socialism is having its roots so lavishly manured at the base, it is supposedly being killed off by the pruning of a few of its topmost shoots in September! No, dear Bismarck, cacatum non est pictum?
Thanks for the newspaper. Three-quarters of all the hullaballoo is sheer fabrication on the part of the Londoner Journal (Dr Juch, an old good-for-nothing wastrel of the most disreputable kind, and Schweitzer, book-printer, who received a drubbing during the Crown Princeb demonstration but was too much of a coward to complain!); what is more, this paper is intent on being purchased by the reptile fund[408] which, however, already possesses a paper here in the shape of the Hermann and takes the view non bis in idem? The truth of the matter is that, in two associations over here, a few louts of German origin, likewise most disreputable, are kicking up a great row so that they may, apropos the business of the shootings in Berlin, cut a dash as representatives here of the workers of all countries. The seductive prospect of having a rôle to play has misled little Ehrhart of Mannheim into consorting with this gang. For the third time now in approximately four years they have proclaimed themselves the international central council of the proletariat.[01] Should this shouting and scribbling go beyond a certain point, we shall be obliged to unmask these gentry in public so that people shan't think we are at the back of this balderdash — something it is wholly in the interests of reaction to disseminate.
The prospect of a trip to Germany this year would seem to be poor, even if politics were not becoming ever more obstructive. I shall be glad if I can get my wife to the nearest seaside town for a couple of weeks; hitherto it wasn't even to be thought of. Last week she scarcely ever left her bed. The thing is exceedingly grave and might turn out very badly. Mrs Marx, too, is unwell with liver and stomach trouble, and has been told by the leading specialist here that, while there's no getting rid of it altogether, it might be made bearable. We don't yet know what spa he will prescribe.
[11] Cacking isn't painting. - b Frederick III - c not to pay twice for the same thing -(l See this volume, pp. 364-65.
223. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 10 August
Marx is comparatively well for this time of year. His eldest daughter has had another baby, a boy.[409] Congratulations from us all on your 'No. 8'.[410] So if Mrs Marx isn't sent to the Continent, you are unlikely to have any visitors from over here this year.
Pumps is as lazy about writing as ever, if not more so. But in other respects the school in Manchester has done her a lot of good.[411]
Kindest regards from us all to you, your wife[2] and the children.
Your
F. Engels
223
ENGELS TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN PARIS
London, 10 August 1878 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear Mr Lavrov,
I hope you have received the copy of my anti-Diihring[401] which I sent off to you yesterday. I should have sent it earlier had I known your present address. I wrote to Smirnov,b 4 Lower Charles St., and then to Lopatin,[15] 6 rue Linné, to ask for it, but neither has replied. Could you let me know where I should send Lopatin's copy? We find his silence somewhat disturbing, for an earlier letter,[1] sent to him at the same address, was forwarded to him to Switzerland where, or so he wrote and told me, he intended to stay only until the month of June; and since then Hauajiod reports his having been arrested in Russia.[412] Although the news is not without chronological snags, his silence makes us anxious.
As you will have seen, the German Darwinians have, in response to Virchow's appeal,[403] come out unequivocally against socialism.
224. Marx to George Rivers. 24 August
Haeckel, whose pamphlet I have just received, limits himself to speaking in general terms about the 'crazy doctrines of socialism',[3]
but Mr Oscar Schmidt of Strasbourg is going to flatten us con amoreh at the natural scientists' conference0 in Kassel.[402] It's a waste of effort. If reaction in Germany gets the bit between its teeth, its first victims, after the socialists, will be the Darwinians. Anyway, whatever happens to them, I shall take it upon myself to reply to these gentlemen.[404] And in any case, we have every reason to be satisfied with that event as, indeed, with events in general. Mr Bismarck who, for 7 years, has been working for us as if he was in our pay, now appears incapable of moderating his offers to speed up the advent of socialism. Après moi le déluge[413] does not suffice him; he insists upon having that deluge in his own lifetime — let his will be done. I am only afraid that he will do his work too well and that the deluge will arrive before its appointed time.
Yours sincerely,
F. Engels
224
MARX TO GEORGE RIVERS[414]
IN LONDON
[London,] 24 August 1878 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sir,
The London Correspondent of the Berlin Vossische Zeitungd
indulged in the bad joke that I had written a book Herr Bücher"; thereupon the false rumour spread through Germany, and the
225. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 4 September
Prussian Police did its utmost to confirm it by domiciliary visits at the shops of several booksellers intended to catch copies of Herr Bucher. Thus, you see, Herr Bucher is a hoax.
You will oblige me by sending me catalogues, if there be suit, of your American and secondhand books.
Yours truly,
Karl Marx
225
MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE
IN HOBOKEN
[London,] 4 September 1878
Dear Sorge,
With a view to restoring my HEALTH I am leaving today for Malvern where I shall spend three weeks.[415] (Address: Dr K. Marx, Malvernbury, Great Malvern, Worcester.) My wife has already been there some weeks and is seriously unwell; my little grandson" has been through a bad illness — and all this TROUBLE is the explanation for my not having written before.
As TO Douai, I am entirely of your opinion; do not give him Capital^
My best thanks for your efforts over the Philadelphia PAPERS[416] and Weydemeyer's Extract?[11]
The copies have safely reached Engels and myself; it's no go so far as England is concerned, if only on account of the host of printer's errors; also, the translation has certain shortcomings which render it unsuitable for this country. However, I intend (on my return) to arrange for a somewhat AMENDED EDITION of it for London, but in such a way that I shall write a short foreword
226. Engels to Friedrich Lessner. 12 September
while the book itself will appear under Weydemeyer's name. I.e. if that meets with your approval.
Mr Bismarck is working nicely on our behalf. Salut.
Your faithful friend,
Karl Marx
I hope I shall soon hear better news of your health. My wife asks me to send you her warm regards.
226
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH LESSNER
IN LONDON
[London,] 12 September 1878 Half past one in the morning
Dear Lessner,
My poor wife" has just been released by death from her long sufferings.
I cannot send you the wine. However, you can have it fetched at any time.
Your
F. E.
227. Engels to Rudolf Engels. 12 September
227
ENGELS TO RUDOLF ENGELS
IN BARMEN
London, 12 September 1878
Dear Rudolf,
At half past one this morning my wife,(1) to whom I had been legally married the previous evening, died peacefully after a long illness.
I anticipate a number of additional expenses and, as my bank balance is somewhat low, you would oblige me by promptly sending me a remittance of about £200 at your earliest convenience.
Your
Friedrich
228. Marx to Jenny Longuet. 16 September[418]
My dear Child,
I hope that the better news of Johnnyb continues. You must let us have bulletins every day, and always the strict truth. The little chap is the apple of my eye. Above all, he must be spared undue exertion, hence not too much movement (passive or active) OUT OF
229. Marx to Engels. 17 September
HIS HOME. If he makes good progress, as I hope, it might be better not to leave until Saturday (instead of Friday[3]). For one additional day's rest and recuperation is of great importance in his case.
Today Engels took himself off to Hampton[419] with Madame Renshaw and Pumps who has already put on quite the air, not to say BEHAVIOUR, of a 'princesse régnante', along with the 5 GUINEA mourning gown; this last, however, has only served to increase her ill-conceived 'glee'. Tussy will be sending you further details of these peculiar goings-on.
According to the news sent by Liebknecht, Bismarck's Bill[420] will be rejected out of hand or else passed with modifications that will draw its sting.
MY BEST LOVE TO YOU AND YOUR MAMA Puppy,' the good little fellow, is much improved.
Your
Moor
229
MARX TO ENGELS
IN LITTLEHAMPTON [4 1 9]
[London,] 17 September 1878
DEAR FRED, I am writing this letter before going to your house (it is still very early); should I find a letter for you there, I shall send it under separate cover.
The news from Malvern is much better so that it won't be necessary for me to go there; but for safety's sake the doctor is now calling regularly every day; I had already suggested as much to my wife so as to prevent their constantly flying into needless PANICS on the one hand and neglecting necessary precautions on the other; but she and above all Jennychen foolishly objected, not wishing, as they said, to add 'needlessly' to the already enormous doctors' BILLS in Malvern. Now they realise that I was right. I had similarly prescribed a regular drive at the best time of day, whenever the child's[3] condition permitted. This, too, has now been endorsed by the doctor. These drives are Jennychen's only recreation and, for my wife — whose cure has been seriously impaired by the continual TROUBLES with the child — the only means of combatting these influences which are so detrimental to her health. So long as I remained there,[410] I saw to it that this was done.
Mr Eulenburg (vide PAPERS OF TODAY)[42]' will not, for his part, be carrying any coals to Newcastle.b Anything more pitiful than the EXTRACT — quintessence — of his SPEECH I have yet to see. Stolberg, too, is good. The purpose of the exceptional law[420] is to deprive the Social-Democratic movement of every vestige of legality. Probatum est^ Mettre hors la loid has, from time immemorial, been an infallible means of making anti-government movements 'illegal', and protecting the government from the law—la légalité nous tue.[422] Reichensperger represents the Rhenish bourgeois of the Centre.[423] Bamberger adheres faithfully to 'We are but dogs!'.[407]
Bebel has clearly made an impression.[424] (See Daily News OF
TO-DAY.)
It's a good beginning. According to various English newspapers our friend Kovalevsky has been shot in Odessa; they spell his name thus — Kowalsky. The FAT BOY, who came to see me on Sunday,[6] told me a very choice anecdote. Before his departure, sundry 'diplomatic' aspirants amongst his Moscow students had to sit an examination. They included a number of laddies much older than himself, notably Montenegrins, who were being given an academic training at the expense of the RUSSIAN ASIATIC (DIPLOMATIC) DEPARTMENT. These laddies are distinguished by their DENSENESS and advanced age, as once the country bumpkins at our grammar school in Trier, who were preparing to enter the seminary (Catholic) and most of them drawing stipends.
Although marks (for university examinations) in Russia run from 0 to 5, Kovalevsky awarded only two lots of marks — 4 for those who knew nothing at all and 5 for those who knew something. During the last examinations he was approached by one of his students, a long, lanky Montenegrin of 32, who said: 'You must award me a 5; I know that I don't know anything, but on the other hand I know that, if I get "another" 4, the ASIATIC DEPARTMENT will send me packing back to Montenegro; so that's why you must award me a 5.' Needless to say, he failed his examination with flying colours, since Kovalevsky — as, indeed, he had told him — could see NO NECESSITY for his continued residence in Moscow.
The oddest part of it is — or so Kovalevsky says — that all these laddies from Montenegro become imbued while in Moscow with a fanatical hatred of the Russians. They naively told him as much themselves, the alleged reason being that 'the Russians IN GENERAL, and Russian students in particular, tell us we're barbarians and blockheads and treat us as such'. Hence the Russian government achieves precisely the opposite of what it intended with its 'benefactions'.
What used to be a private joke of ours, namely that it's the Russian socialists who commit the 'atrocities' for which the 'law-abiding' German Social-Democrats are to be put hors la loi, has been adduced in all seriousness by the fatuous Stolberg.[425]
Only he forgot to add that, alongside those 'atrocities', there exists in Russia a 'state of law' which is the ideal if unattainable goal aimed at by that squireen Bismarck's bill.
The fact that the Russians, with the support of Prussia and Austria, are yet again seeking 'European mediation' is a highly significant symptom.
Adio. I trust that you are recovering in Littlehampton from your recent shock. Love from Tussy and Lenchen.
Your
Moor
230. Marx to Jenny Marx. 17 September
230
MARX TO JENNY MARX[26]
IN MALVERN
[London,] 17 September 1878
Dear Jenny,
As arranged on my departure,[415] herewith POST OFFICE ORDER for £3. If, in view of the change in circumstances, it shouldn't be enough, let me know immediately.
After my return I suffered from a very severe headache; however, that has got better since I received a reassuring letter about Johnny from dear Jennychen; and your good news today — still continuing, I trust — was balm to me.
I shall not say very much about the goings-on at No. 122 Regent's Park Road, since Tussy is YOUR REGULAR CHRONICLER in that sphere and I mustn't skim off the cream. But I can't resist telling you about one episode which, in its originality, is reminiscent at one and the same time of Balzac and Paul de Kock. When Tussy, MRS Renshaw and Pumps (she has now been KNIGHTED; Engels will be calling her Pumpsia from now on) were sorting out the dead woman's odds and ends, MRS Renshaw found, amongst other things, a small packet of letters (ABOUT eight, six of which were from members of the Marx FAMILY, two from Williams — Ramsgate) and made as if to hand them to MR Chitty, who was present at the operation. * 'No,' said he, 'burn them! I need not see her Letters. I know she was unable to deceive me.'* Could Figaro (I mean the real one of Beaumarchais) have trouvé cela[3]? As MRS Renshaw remarked later to Tussy: *'Of course, as he had to write her letters, and to read to her the letters she received, he might feel quite sure that these letters contained no secrets for him — but they might do so, for her.'*
Together with this letter I am today sending you The Daily News and The Standard, on account of the telegrams about the German Reichstag.[421] Bebel WAS EVIDENTLY THE ONLY SPEAKER IMPOSING ; t h e government spokesmen — Stolberg and Eulenburg — deplorable beyond words; Bamberger true to his motto 'We are but dogs!'[407];
231. Engels to Marx. 18 September
Reichensperger — the Rhenish bourgeois under the thumb of the Catholic Party of the Centre. [4 2 3] Even lickspittle Reuter doesn't think this first performance much of a success!
I hope that you and Jennychen will get a little better during this week; keep on going for drives, ensemble,* WIND, WEATHER AND THE HEALTH OF THE CHILD (1) PERMITTING; should this not be possible for once, you yourself should never miss a drive; but I hope the little lad WILL BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE and hence, too, his sorely tried mama. Best wishes to Jennychen and a kiss for Johnny.
Adio.
Your
Moor
231
ENGELS T O MARX
IN LONDON
Littlehampton, [4 1 9] 18 September 1878 Selborne Cottage
Dear Moor,
As usual I did not express myself clearly. Since I couldn't expect you to go over daily and forward me my letters, I sent the people at home a few addressed envelopes so that they might forward me the letters every two or three days. What I had meant to ask you to do was to make sure, during the first few days, that the letter concerning money I was expecting wasn't left lying around for a n u m b e r of days, and that the general business of sending stuff became a regular routine; also to take an occasional look at the newspapers and other papers that had arrived (and were, according to my instructions, to remain there) in case they should include anything that called for attention. I hope we now understand one another.
This morning's Standard contains a good article full of well-merited contempt on the subject of the law and the debate.[426]
I am sending it to Leipzig.[427] The debate is deplorable enough as far as the law-and-order men are concerned. Bismarck, totally incapable of refuting the facts adduced against him by Bebel,[424]
has recourse to the pitiful subterfuge of saying that he sympa-thised with the Social-Democrats until they began extolling the Commune — he, who himself patted the Commune on the back for copying Prussia's municipal statutes! And then he reviles as a band of robbers a party represented in the Reichstag, and the call to order is rejected!
I am sending you a Kölnische Zeitung.[3] First there is a demand for Russian laws for the Germans, and then the Petersburg correspondent says that since in Russia those same Russian laws have proved ineffective, the only remedy lies in a constitution, popular representation, freedom of the press, etc.! The stupid paper failed to notice this, as no doubt did our people too, alas. The last part of the piece from Moscow is also interesting. Mark the things and send them to Leipzig (Ramm — Hermann — Färberstraße 12IIb); they might notice it after all and make use of it.
Russia's numerous and forceful moves in Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, etc., would seem to be intended on the one hand TO
FISH IN TROUBLED WATERS, WHERE SOMETHING MAY BE EXPECTED TO TURN UP AT ANY MOMENT and, on the other, to deceive public opinion at home. But who knows what may yet come of it? Bismarck may soon be so placed that his only recourse will be to seek another war with France, thus sparking off a European war of East versus West, in the course of which no one is more likely to go under than he. At all events, the Turkish war has shown how rotten the whole of Europe is, and that the eruption is closer than we might have expected. No matter what happens, it will turn out to our advantage.
I was delighted to hear that the little boyc is better, which means that with any luck the perpetual alarms are now a thing of the past.
Here it has been raining incessantly since yesterday evening. This little place consists of two parts — the VILLAGE and harbour on the River Arne, and the BEACH 500 paces to the south-east, some 150 houses on a dune, where one might well imagine oneself in Holland. SANDS as lovely and firm as at Ostend.
232. Marx to Engels. 18 September
I may spend a couple of hours in London at the end of this week; IF SO I shall, if possible, let you know.
Your
F. E.
232
MARX TO ENGELS
IN LITTLEHAMPTON [4 1 9]
[London,] 18 September 1878
DEAR FRED,
ALL RIGHT. Herewith a letter from Kaub, which please be good enough to return as I have not yet answered it. Hirsch has behaved like a fool during his stay in Paris and seems to be intent on achieving martyrdom. Incidentally, the goings-on in Paris patently show how right you were to warn me against making a pilgrimage to that city.
A fine republic, to let itself be ordered about by Messrs Bismarck and Stieber! Last night Barry came to see me. The Lausanne congress did not take place, as he learnt while still in Paris where he therefore remained. It was simply as REPORTERS that Hirsch and he went to the meeting, but the latter had already been dispersed, and those attending it taken into custody; Hirsch was not arrested until later that night, in his own house.[428] The next day the IRREPRESSIBLE Barry presented himself at the police headquarters (with the moral support of documents showing him to be correspondent of The Standard and a contributor to The Whitehall Review). There he saw a subordinate official to whom he applied for permission to see 'his friends', Hirsch and Guesde. At this he was given the addresses of the two police officers who had arrested Hirsch and Guesde. Both were outraged by the cheek of this ENGLISH bifstek, and ended up by pushing him out of the office.
Barry, undismayed, returned to the police headquarters where he managed to penetrate as far as the great Gigot. After exchanging a few words with big Barry, this 'POLITE' policeman asserted that he didn't speak enough English or Barry sufficient French; so rang for an interpreter. Substance of the conversation: that what Barry said about Hirsch's non-participation should be told to the examining magistrate, not the Prefect of Police; that the arrest was 'legal', etc. At which Barry: IT MIGHT BE LEGAL IN FRANCE FOR OUGHT HE KNEW, BUT IT WOULD NOT BE so IN ENGLAND. At which Gigot, with solemn pathos: Les étrangers qui viennent chez nous, etc., doivent se soumettre aux lois de la Ré-pu-bli-que frrrançaise? Whereat THE BRAZEN Barry, SHAKING HIS HAT, rejoined: 'Vive la République!' This last exclamation brought the blood to Gigot's face, and he gave Barry to understand that he had no wish to exchange political ideas with him, etc. This time, however, Barry was merely bowed politely out of the room.
He has — vis-à-vis myself — put the lid on what was, on that occasion, amusing effrontery on his part. For he told me that he was going to spend another week at Hastings with his family and now I would doubtless have the time to get together for him material for articles (in The Nineteenth Century). He might well, in making this fresh onslaught, have fared worse than in the dens of the two French police officers.
Once again, Levy's paperb has shown itself to be the most shameless in London. In today's leading article he tells his readers that Reichensperger, speaking for the 'Centre',[423] came out in favour of the Bill[420] (for such was the interpretation put by Levy on the news sent him by his reptile[408] correspondent in Berlin), and Bismarck's majority was assured. By the by, even Levy, whatever his admiration for the GREAT CHANCELLOR, must needs confess that the great man HAD RATHER THE WORSE of it in his verbal encounter with the 'brilliant' Bebel.[424]
The only one of Utin's pamphlets I have yet looked at is that by Adolph Samter (Die Reform des Geldwesens); the following is a SAMPLE of how he quotes (he often quotes me, but paraphrases more often still; all the pamphlet boils down to is the silly notion of introducing, in place of the bank note, a 'commodity note', something which had, to all intents and purposes, been introduced in 1848 with the Prussian government's loan bank notes). I say: 'Although gold and silver are not by Nature money, money is by Nature gold and silver, etc.'a; he, citing the correct page number, gives as a quotation: 'Gold and silver is by its nature money. Marx, etc.'b The art of reading would appear to be increasingly on the wane among the 'educated' estates in Germany. In the case of the said Samter, the nonsensical and ungrammatical quotation doesn't even conceal an evil intent. Thus he gives as a quotation from Petty, 'Labour is the father, nature the mother of material wealth', because when speaking of 'material' wealth, I said that in this case Petty's words were appropriate, etc.
Apropos. Our FAT BOY, Kovalevsky, came across Ralston again in Switzerland and was immediately asked whether he knew the Russian socialist who had described him (Ralston) in the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Zeitung as a HUMBUG, COWARD, etc. (The article was written by my wifec). Kovalevsky, though he had some inkling of its provenance, answered truthfully that he knew of no such Russian. However, since that time Ralston (with whom he is again saddled over here) has become far less confiding. (The article in the above-mentioned feuilleton referred to a nasty piece of twaddle Ralston wrote on the subject of 'RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE'. )
Yesterday Mr Montefiore jun. came to see me; is going to Berlin; and, in a manner altogether typical of a young English man of letters, especially in London, said to Tussy: 'If only the Prussians would do me the kindness of arresting me for a day or two! What splendid material it would provide for an article in a review or a LETTER TO The TimesV
I went to your house and have sent off to you the letter I found there.
Adio.
Your
Moor
233. Engels to Marx. 19 September
234. Engels to Marx. 21 September
233
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Littlehampton,[419]] 19 September 1878 Seiborne Cottage
Dear Moor,
Letter re money received. I immediately telegraphed and wrote to N. Cohen & Co., telling them to pay the money into my bank. But since it was made payable as of yesterday, it is quite possible that they delivered the cheque to my house yesterday, or sent it through the post. Would you be so kind as to go and ask about it at my house? If nothing has been handed in or arrived at 122 Regent's Park Road,a then all will be in order and the bank will probably send the advice to me here tomorrow, as I asked them to do.
In haste, TO CATCH FIRST POST.
Your
F. E.
234
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Littlehampton,[419] 21 September 1878
Dear Moor,
I return Kaub's letter herewith. Hirsch would appear to have taken literally Mesa's assurance that, as a German, he would be
235. Marx to Engels. 24 September
invulnerable in Paris. Now he's likely to pay for it with a spell in jug, for they'll remand him in custody for as long as they can.[428]
Barry's adventures really are killing." I, too, saw Levy's brilliant article[6] at a pub where I went to shelter from the rain. The paper0 is worthy of the man.
It is high time there was a change in Constantinople, otherwise the numerous provincial insurrections will bring about a state of affairs conducive to the collapse of European Turkey — i.e. exactly what Bismarck and the Russians want so as to fish in troubled waters and not implement the Treaty of Berlin.[430] Midhat's return to Crete and a bold coup on his part could give a different turn to things. If the present state of affairs continues, the Russians will stay there and the renewed prospects of plunder this will give them might also stem the natural course of things inside Russia itself.
We are just off to spend a couple of hours in Brighton.
Your
F. E.
235
MARX TO ENGELS[431]
IN LITTLEHAMPTON [4 1 9]
[London,] 24 September 1878
DEAR FRED,
Herewith a scrawl from Liebknecht[432]; I opened the letter because I thought it might contain news of the party which would perhaps call for immediate action on our part.
I should be grateful if you would send back Lavrov's letter by return; it arrived today and has not yet been answered. The only interesting thing about it is the passage relating to Wrôblewski,— probably correct, as it is in keeping with his temperament as homme d'action[3] and is, moreover, plus ou moinsb confirmed by his silence where we are concerned.
After the opening of the Reichstag, I received the Bill submitted to the same by the government, together with the preamble[420]; yesterday, from the same quarter (Bracke) I likewise received the stenographic report of the Reichstag sittings of 16 and 17 September.0 One has little conception — even at this stage — either of the AVERAGE Prussian minister's stupidity and his master's0
'ingenuity', or of the nastiness of his hangers-on, the representatives of the true-blue German bourgeoisie — until one sees before one the stenographic report of this, its most recent manifestation. I am to some extent occupied in making extracts from it for the English press, but I'm not yet sure whether it's quite what I want for The Daily News.[455]
The Russians' ploy in Afghanistan,[434] like the INCIDENTS in Turkey — all this is of little interest to me now except in so far as it provides argumentum ad hominem" in regard to European state-craft. I am, besides, convinced that nothing Russia, and Prussia INTO THE BARGAIN, can now do on the international stage can have other than pernicious consequences for their regime, nor can it delay the latter's downfall, but only expedite its violent end.
My wife, Jennychen and Johnny arrived here safe and sound on Fridayf afternoon and the whole company took up quarters with us until yesterday evening when Jennychen removed, lock, stock and barrel, to Leighton Grove[8] so as to be there to receive
Longuet. But the big man won't be arriving till this evening. The child is much better and, miraculously enough, Jennychen also recovered somewhat during the last few days of her stay in Malvern.
Yesterday old Petzler called in with a letter from a parsonh who edits a magazine, also DABBLES IN SOCIALISM and wants SOME INFORMATION from me.[435] Meanwhile Bismarck has again succeeded in placing socialism à l'ordre du jour' so that even la haute politique' is in consequence plus ou moins lost from view.
236. Marx to Moritz Kaufmann. 3 October
Hoping that Mother Nature is assisting your recovery, and with love from Tussy, Jennychen and my wife.
Your
Moor
236
MARX TO MORITZ KAUFMANN[435]
IN BIRKENHEAD
[Draft]
[London, 3 October 1878 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.]
Dear Sir,
Mr Petzler told me you had written an article on my book The Capital and my life, to be reprinted together with other articles of yours, and that you desired me or Engels to correct any errors on your part.a I can of course not decide how far this is feasible before having got a copy of [the] said article.
The best history of the Commune is Lissagaray's: Histoire de la Commune. Its first edition, however, is exhausted and no second one yet published. The address of Lissagaray is: 35 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square, London, W.; he may perhaps be able to procure you a copy of his work.
En attendant^ I forward you the 'Address' on the Commune written by me immediately after its downfall on behalf of the General Council of the International.0
I shall also send you — if you do not yet possess it — by post a recent publication of my friend Engels: Herrn Eugen Dühring's
237. Marx to Moritz Kaufmann. 10 October
Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, which is very important for a true appreciation of German Socialism.
Yours truly,
Karl Marx
M. Kaufmann, ESQ.
237
MARX TO MORITZ KAUFMANN[435]
IN BIRKENHEAD
[Draft]
London, 10 October 1878 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sir,
I have confined myself to point out in the proof-sheets one or two mistakes. To enter on the more important mis-statements, I had neither the leisure, nor would it have suited your purpose.
Proof-sheet b. I have struck out: 'one of whom was the youthful Lassalle'. He was never a collaborator of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, though he first entered at that time into personal relations with me.
I have added 'the Russian' translation of the Capital, because it is exactly in Russia that the younger University Professors have openly adopted and defended my theory.[436]
Proof-sheet d. I have struck out 'and formerly one of its members'. Mehring was never a member of the German Social-Democratic Party; the fact is that, by denouncing to Liebknecht some operations of the manager of the reptile funds,[408] he tried to become a member. Soon after, having been publicly branded with infamy by a judgment of the Frankfurt tribunal, on the occasion of his action for defamation against Herr Sonnemann (the proprietor of the Frankfurter Zeitung),[437] he boldly accepted his position as a literary
238. Engels to Hermann Arnoldt. 21 October
scamp. Even the most conservative amongst the honest adversaries of German Social Democracy would be rather startled to find such a man styled: 'the historian of Social Democracy'. Of course, he enjoys the esteem of Mr Bamberger who, as a refugee in Paris, after the downfall of the Revolution of 1848 in Germany (he had acted during that revolution the part of a spouting demagogue), got his practical training at the hands of the Second Empire financiers, enriched himself by his participation in the Mexico loan swindle,[438] etc., returned to Germany after the Prussian victory and became one of the leading spirits of the German 'Börsen- und Gründungsschwindelperiode''.a It is not exactly Mr Albert Grant at London (and he is of the Bamberger stamp, and, curiously to say, native of the same town — Mayence) one would address himself to for information and criticism of the Owenite movement f.i.
How far you were happy in considering Mr Howell's article (in The Nineteenth Century) as a 'historical source', you may see from the sheet I forward with these lines.[439]
I shall forward you to-morrow Mr Engels' book.b
238
ENGELS TO HERMANN ARNOLDT
IN KÖNIGSBERG
[Draft]
[London,] 21 October 1878
In reply to your esteemed letter of the 18th, I shall gladly take temporary charge of the documents concerned.[440] Having no fire-proof safe, however, I cannot, of course, accept responsibility in the matter of fire or theft, and should be obliged if you would expressly acknowledge this fact in your accompanying letter. Other
[11] 'stock-exchange speculation during the Gründerjahre' (a play on the title of Glagau's work Der Börsen- und Gründungs-Schwindel in Deutschland). - b F. Engels, Anti-Dühring.
239. Marx to an Unknown Correspondent. 4 November
aspects can be dealt with in our subsequent correspondence. I shall preserve the papers concerned as carefully as those of a similar nature belonging to myself.
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
239
MARX TO AN UNKNOWN CORRESPONDENT
London, 4 November 1878
Dear Friend,
You would greatly oblige me by seeing if you could safely convey the enclosed letter to Mrs Liebknecht's address, 11 Braustrasse, Leipzig. It concerns the 'stomach problem' for Liebknecht's family, but I don't trust the German post.[441]
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 34, Moscow, 1964
240. Marx to Alfred Talandier. About 10 November[442]
I have undertaken to write to you regarding the letter attacking MR Barry in the Marseillaise of 6 October.[443] When the Marseillaise of 6 October eventually and quite by chance — which I can prove — fell into MR Barry's hands, he at once wrote a reply in English which he requested me to translate into French for him. For several days I postponed doing as he had asked — why, you will understand when you have read my letter. MR Barry could not divulge all the facts
1) without compromising Hirsch, whose fate has not yet been decideda;
2) without compromising Hirsch's brother-in-law0 who is still living in Paris;
3) without citing me and thus probably getting me involved in a public dispute with you;
4) without attacking certain individuals who figure in your letter;
5) without exposing the bad faith of the Marseillaise. In my opinion, it is not an 'opportune' moment to arouse the mirth of the reactionaries by squabbling in this way. On the other hand, MR Barry is fully entitled to defend himself. And there we have the dilemma. The only hope of diverting him from his purpose seemed to me to be Mr Hirsch's arrival in London (which he had given me to expect in the event of his being expelled from France). Then, by the publication of a few lines in the Marseillaise, compromising no one, he could have satisfied MR Barry. Unfortunately, there has been no sign of life from him since his expulsion. At length MR Barry lost all patience and, since he perfectly understood my objections to the publication of his reply (which would have appeared, if needs be, in a Swiss newspaper), we agreed
1) that he would leave his reply in my hands for the time being and
2) that I would endeavour to settle the matter by writing to you. I now come to the nub of the matter.
Facts
1) The Social-Democratic Club (which was a section of the International while that organisation existed), 6 Rose Street, Soho, consists of two sections, one German, the other English. The former elected Mr Ehrhart as [its] representative at the congress, the latter MR Barry. It having been noised about London that the congress, banned by the police, would be held in Lausanne, the mandates were sent to the office of the Lausanne congress.[428]
Here is a copy of MR Barry's credential, the original of which has been entrusted to me:
*'Social-Democratic Working Men's Club, 6 Rose Street, Soho Square. 'English Section. London, August 31, 1878. 'Citizens, The bearer of this Credential — Citizen Maltman Barry — is the representative of the English Section of the Social-Democratic Club of London. 'To the Bureau Socialist Congress. Lausanne, Switzerland.
'Fr. Kitz, Secretary, English Section, Social-Democratic Club.'*
Again, after MR Barry's return, he was called on, in a letter from the secretary Kitz, to account to the club for the execution of his mandate. This letter is also in my possession.
It is thus completely proven that MR Barry was the mandatory of a Social-Democratic (working-class) society and not, as you have disseminated, somewhat 'lightly', of the 'international police'.
2) You further say that, in his letter to the Marseillaise,[3] Barry complains 'of not having been arrested by the French police', to which you add: 'Citizen Hirsch does not, for his part, complain of not having been arrested, etc.', so giving the public to understand that you were speaking in Hirsch's name. But, in a letter to me dated 14 October, Citizen Hirsch describes your letter as 'infamous' and says he had not been told of it until after his release. You forget, by the way, that Barry was not the only English delegate to the congress, there having been at least a dozen, not one of whom was arrested by the French police. The Vorwärts, the central organ of the German Socialist Party (now suppressed), evidently grasped the point of that passage in Barry's letter when it remarked that 'the French government was perfectly prepared to please Mr Bismarck by arresting Hirsch, etc., but did not dare take complaisance so far as to lay hands on Englishmen'.h For that matter, Mr Barry, still acting in concert with Hirsch's brother-in-law, expressed his opinion fairly and squarely to Mr Gigot and, since the latter had minutes taken of that discussion, you are in a position to inform yourself from official sources as to the close relationship between Mr Barry and the French police.
But I forget that, for the greater glory of 'those who govern us', you seem intent on suggesting that the French police is not a member, but the dupe of 'the international police'. The powers-that-be of the Republic thought otherwise, excusing themselves vis-à-vis Hirsch's brother-in-law by insinuating that 'those who govern us' should show some consideration for 'neighbouring powers'.
3) Now, what are the grave facts which authorised you to become 'the disseminator of so terrible an accusation', namely that Mr Barry 'owed his appointment as delegate to those men' (the men, that is to say, of the international police)?
They are founded on nothing, i.e. on futile tittle-tattle which a highly suspect private individual by the name of Schumann retailed to you in secret, without MR Barry's knowledge.[3]
Let us revert for a moment to Schumann. After his return to London, he had nothing more urgent to do [than] announce the happy news of his release to The Standard, a 'Tory and Bonapartist newspaper'. Then this same individual, wholly unknown to me up till then, gained entry to my house on a false pretext. As I was hauling him over the coals for the tittle-tattle repeated in your letter, he replied: 'But Mr Talandier did wrong; I told him expressly that all I was retailing was mere hearsay, that I personally knew nothing about Barry, etc.'b
Of his own accord he asked me for Barry's address, in order that he might be able to apologise to him. In fact he did nothing of the kind but, on the contrary, confided to a refugee, of whose connections with myself he knew nothing, that in an interview with him Marx had affirmed that he had also denounced Barry as a spy. This would seem to render superfluous any further discussion of the honourableness of your client and guarantee. Since then I have received some particulars about him which will find their way to Copenhagen.
In your letter you ask: 'How did Mr Maltman Barry ... come to write to the Marseillaise?' Very simply, if you please. MR Barry, to whom I had given a letter of recommendation to Hirsch, was taken by the latter to the Marseillaise and presented to Mr Maret. After his return to London, MR Barry sent a letter in English to Hirsch's brother-in-law, who was supposed to decide when the time was ripe for its insertion in the Marseillaise. The said brother-in-law, thinking it might be of service to Hirsch, translated the letter into French and handed it in person to the editorial department of the Marseillaise. Hence, by publishing your denunciation without any comment whatsoever, that paper perpetrated a gross impropriety, which can only be explained by your letter to Mr Henri Maret, published in the same issue of the paper.(1) This is especially improper when it is taken into consideration that you are a friend and correspondent of MR Bradlaugh[445] who is a personal enemy of MR Barry and of the late International.
4) Another complaint weighing on MR Schumann's tender conscience and mentioned by you, is MR Barry's alleged activity in Paris as 'correspondent ... of The Standard, an English Tory and ... Bonapartist newspaper'.
To call The Standard a 'Bonapartist' newspaper is a joke. So long as Louis Bonaparte remained a useful ally, exploitable by England, he was cosseted by The Standard, but not in such a disgusting manner as by The Times, nor so naively as by Messrs Bright and Cobden, then the leaders of the English radicals, and The Standard never sold itself to him as did the liberal newspaper, The Daily Telegraph. Today — and still in the English interest—The Standard, along with almost the whole of the English press, has changed, where French affairs are concerned, into a partisan of the 'moderate', if not 'opportunist' republic.[446]
All that remains, then, is the epithet 'Tory'. Kindly note that the said Tory newspaper never ceases to attack the new Holy Alliance [143] and its chief, MR Bismarck, whereas The Times acts as his semi-official organ, as he himself declared in the German Reichstag. Well, now, MR Eccarius—-one of the delegates of the so-called INTERNATIONAL LABOUR UNION, to which Schumann and MR Bradlaugh belong, acted as Times correspondent at the Paris Congress. So why should MR Barry not have done likewise for The Standard? You have lived long enough in England to know that the English working class has no newspaper at its disposal and is therefore compelled, on the occasion of working men's congresses, etc., to look for publicity to the papers of its masters, whether Whig or Tory, and that in neither case is it expected to accept responsibility for the opinions of either. You have lived long enough in England not to seek to attach labels, borrowed from the vocabulary of the French parties, to English political relations. For 10 1878
otherwise, I feel sure, you would never have accepted the post of English government official.
5) The circumstances being what they were, this would only have been considered reprehensible had you — like that great republican Karcher, correspondent of the République française— dedicated a book to His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge.[3]
Finally, I come to the last item in your accusation against MR Barry. In the first place, it seems that he committed an unpardonable offence in having acted in a manner contrary to the views of L'Homme libre and of MR Bradlaugh on the Eastern Question. It has to be admitted that, if this places a man under suspicion of being affiliated to the international police, then the great majority of socialists in all the countries of Europe and in the United States would have to share the ill-fortune of MR Barry.
7)b And now I come to the last item in your philippic. And very grave indeed it is — MR Barry allowed a week to go by before deigning to reply to one of the scurrilous articles published by MR Bradlaugh in The National Re former[447]1 ... But there are attenuat-ing circumstances/
8) MR Barry was the less concerned about MR Bradlaugh's articles dated 22 and 29 August in that, as early as 13 July, he had published in The Spectator an article under his own name in which he explained at some length the line of conduct adopted by him during the dispute among the English parties provoked by the Eastern War. He took care to 'disseminate' that article by getting it reprinted in the form of a flysheet.
It was for the compatriots of MR Barry to decide between the latter and MR Bradlaugh for — be it noted — the articles in The
a T. Karcher, Les écrivains militaires de la France. - b There is no point 6 in Marx's draft. - c The following passage is crossed out in the manuscript: 'First of all, rightly or wrongly, The National Reformer exercises no influence on English public opinion. Again, MR Barry was a member of the General Council of the International when the latter publicly denounced MR Bradlaugh as a "Bonapartist": his connections (in London) with Plon-Plon earned him widespread notoriety; as to his intimacy with the "PETTY COAT" diplomacy of the Bonapartist party (in London),[448] Citizen Leblanc can enlighten you; finally his interviews with Bonapartists in Paris were described by me at the time in a London paper,[449] a time when Longuet, Serraillier, etc., and other French refugees were publicly condemning the man who dared to reprint the infamous comments in the Bonapartist and gutter press upon the expatriate Communards; when he was publicly dressed down even by men such as Hales, Jung, etc., who now keep company with him in the so-called "INTERNATIONAL LABOUR LEAGUE", for his attacks on the International. Remember-ing all this, MR Barry could well afford to ignore Bradlaugh's scurrilous articles in The National Reformer.' National Reformer of 22 and 29 August were nothing more than a 'rehash'. And decide his 'compatriots' did—on the 22nd of July. On that day there was a big public meeting (in London), convened by the Social-Democratic Club, to uphold the cause of the German Socialist Party vis-à-vis Bismarck; all the newspapers published verbatim accounts of it and did not conceal from the public that the chairman, elected chairman of that meeting was — MR Mailman Barry.
9) I will not touch on the attitudes adopted by the various parties during the Eastern War. If all those who failed to follow the line set by MR Bradlaugh, not to say L'Homme libre, have incurred the suspicion of being affiliated to one kind of police or another, I very much fear that the vast majority of socialists in Europe and the United States will find themselves tarred with the same brush as MR Barry. But we should be perfectly capable of calling in question the competence of a tribunal which seems to us, at any rate, to be an abettor of the new Holy Alliance. On top of everything else, MR Barry had one particular reason for overlooking MR Bradlaugh's impertinence, namely the resolution passed in 1871 by the members of the majority on the former General Council of the International (to which MR Barry belonged) to ignore MR Bradlaugh until such time as he had refuted the public denunciations by that Council in respect of 1) the intimate relations between the editor of The National Reformer and Plon-Plon and other Bonapartists, both male and female; 2) the lies he published about the International; 3) the calumnies directed against the Communards in London, deriving from the muddied waters of the Bonapartist and gutter press.
At all events, you now know that there is no substance whatever in your letter attacking MR Barry. All that is wanted of you is a declaration in the Marseillaise, stating in a few lines that, after having received the required information, you withdraw your denunciation.
Yours very faithfully,
Karl Marx
241. Marx to Nikolai Danielson. 15 November
241
MARX TO NIKOLAI DANIELSON[320]
IN ST PETERSBURG[450]
London, 15 November 1878 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. My dear Sir,
I received this morning your letter, dated October, 28th. I did not receive the letter you allude to; it may have been intercepted by the German post or been lost; the Prussian postmasters having so much been interfered with on the part of Government, that many letters 'vanished', nobody knows whither, even by mere blundering. In point of fact, the last letter I had the honour to get from you, is dated— 7th May 1877."
The interruption of my own correspondence to you was simply the result of warnings I had received (since the latter date), on the part of friends residing in Russia, to suspend letter-writing to them, as it might, despite the innocent contents of the letters, bring them into trouble.
In regard to the second edition of Capital, I beg to remark[431]:
1) I wish that the divisions into chapters—and the same holds good for the subdivisions—be made according to the French edition.
2) That the translator compare always carefully the second German edition with the French one, since the latter contains many important changes and additions (though, it is true, I was also sometimes obliged — principally in the first chapter — to 'aplatir'h the matter in its French version).
3) Some changes I consider useful— / shall try to get [them] ready for you at all events within 8 days, so that I may despatch them Saturday next (to-day is Friday).0
So soon as the second volume of the Capital[62] will go in print — but this will hardly be before the end of 1879 — you shall get the manuscript in the way demanded.
I have received some publications from Petersburg, for which my best thanks.[365] Of the polemics of Tschischerin and other people against me, I have seen nothing, save what you sent me in 1877 (one article of Sieber, and the other, I think, of Michailoff,d
both in the Fatherlandish Annals,e in reply to that queer would-be Encyclopedist — Mr Joukowski). Prof. Kowalewskiy, who is here, told me that there had been a rather lively polemics on the Capital.™
[The](1) English crisis which I predicted on p. 351 of the French edition, note — has at last come to a head during the past few weeks. Some of my friends — theoreticians and businessmen — had asked me to omit that note because they thought it unfounded. So convinced were they that the crises in the north and south of America and those in Germany and Austria were bound, as it were, to 'cancel out' the English crisis.
The first country in which business will describe an ascending line is the United States of North America. Only this improvement will there set in under conditions altogether altered — for the worse. The people will try in vain to get rid of the monopolising power and the (as far as the immediate happiness of the masses is concerned) baneful influence of the great compagnies swaying industry, commerce, property in land, railroads, finance—-at an always accelerated rate since the outbreak of the Civil War.[453] The best Yankee writers are loud in proclaiming the stubborn fact that, if the Anti-Slavery war has broken the chains of the black, it has on the other hand enslaved the white producers.[454]
The most interesting field for the economist is now certainly to be found in the United States, and, above all, during the period of 1873 (since the crash in September) until 1878 — the period of chronic crisis. Transformations — which to be elaborated did require in England centuries — were here realised in a few years. But the observer must look not to the older States on the Atlantic, but to the newer ones (Ohio is a striking example) and the newest (California f.i.).
The imbeciles in Europe who fancy that theoreticians like myself and others are at the root of the evil, might learn a wholesome lesson by reading the official Yankee reports.
You would much oblige me by some information which you as a banker must possess — on the present state of Russian finance.
Yours very truly,
A. W.b
242. Engels to Ernst Dronke. 19 November
242
ENGELS TO ERNST DRONKE
IN LIVERPOOL
[Copy]
[London,] 19 November 1878
My dear Dronke,
I wrote to you in the beginning of this month [15] to inform you that I had been legally advised that the policy you deposited with me as security[2] was no security whatever unless assigned to me by Mrs Dronke, and that therefore I had instructed my solicitors to draw up a form accordingly.
On the 10th I informed you[15] that this form had been handed to Messrs Whitley and Maddock, solicitors, 6 Water St., Liverpool, and requested you to call and examine it.
I have not had a reply from you to either of these communications, and am now informed that up to the 17th at least you had not called at Messrs Whitley and Maddock.
As none of my letters have been returned to me by the post, I must conclude that they have reached you. However to make matters sure, I have requested Messrs Whitley and Maddock to have this letter delivered at your house. It is needless for me to repeat that unless the above documents are signed and in my hands on the morning of the 23th inst. at latest, I shall decline paying the payment then due.
Your truly
F. E.
London, 19 November 1878
To E. Dronke The assignment of Policy
243. Marx to Nikolai Danielson. 28 November
243
MARX TO NIKOLAI DANIELSON
IN ST PETERSBURG[450]
London, 28 November 1878
* My dear Sir, I have received the three books with best thanks.a I was prepared, by some Russian friends, to expect, on the part of Mr Tshitscherin, a very feeble production, but my expectations have been surpassed. He is evidently unacquainted with the very elements of Political Economy and fancies that, by being edited under his name, the trivialities of the Bastiat school become transformed into original and self-evident truths.
Last week I was prevented from looking at the Capital. I have now done so, and find that — save the changes which the translator must make by comparing the second German edition with the French one — only a very few alterations are necessary, the which you will find later on in this letter.
The two first sections* ('Commodities and Money' and 'The Transformation of Money into Capital') *are to be translated exclusively from the German text. There, p. 86,* line 5 from bottom READ: 'And, as a matter of fact, the value of each single yard is but the materialised form of a part of the social labour expended on the whole number of yards.'[455]
In Chapter XVI of the French edition (not contained in Chapter XIV of the German edition) the added passage on J. St. Mill, p. 222, column II, line 12 from bottom, should read: 'I always assume, he says, the actual state of affairs which predominates wherever workers and capitalists are distinct classes, etc.!'b456
*The following two sentences, viz.:* 'It is a strange optical illusion to see everywhere a state of affairs which as yet exists as an exception in this world of ours! But to continue'—* are to be struck out, and the following sentence is to be read thus: *
'Mr Mill would like to think there is no absolute necessity that such should be the case — even in an economic system where workers and capitalists are distinct classes.'[457]
244. Engels to Ernst Dronke. 29 November
The crisis and ensuing work stoppages, the closure of factories and bankruptcies * proceed boisterously in the industrial counties, but here at London, in order not to frighten the general public, the newspapers do their best to hush these unpleasant but stubborn 'incidents'. One reading only the London money articles gets indeed but very scanty information.
Yours most sincerely,
A. Williams*[3]
Danielson, Leipzig, 1929
244
ENGELS TO ERNST DRONKE
IN LIVERPOOL
[Draft]
London, 29 November 1878
My dear Dronke,
I hear from Messrs Whitley and Maddock that you informed them of your intention rfbt to have the assignment of the Policy executed. Moreover I have not had a word of reply or explanation from yourself. Under these circumstances I can only again repeat, that the Policy belongs to Mrs Dronke.and that you had no right whatever to dispose of it. It is therefore no security for me unless assigned by her in the form prescribed by law. Unless this is done, I shall know how to qualify the transaction, and of course shall not pay any premium to keep it in existence.
Yours truly
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 34, Moscow, 1964
245. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 12 December
245
ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
IN GENEVA
London, 12 December 1878 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Old Man,
We are all most sorry to hear that things are going so badly with you and, so that you may at least have some help straight away, I have taken out a money order for you for £2 sterling on which, according to the information here, you will be paid 50 frs 40 over there. I have been told to retain the order here, as an order will be sent you by the Swiss post office in Basle, so unless this is done at once, you must complain. I shall see if I can get hold of some more money for you very shortly.
It will, if my own experience is anything to go by, be virtually impossible to obtain any agencies for you here. Having been out of business for almost ten years, I have seen all my commercial connections gradually die a natural death; when a man no longer has anything to haggle over, you see, he's no longer of any interest to those gentlemen. However, I shall see if there's anyone I might be able to sound out, although I can't for the time being hold out any prospects for you.
As for the Précurseur, by the way, if the paper doesn't pay for itself I wouldn't, if I were you, expend a single sou on it.[458] I cannot see why you should sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the Genevan workers and their local Genevan politics. If they want a paper, let them pay for it themselves. It's enough in all conscience that you should have to bear the brunt of the worry and the work. Considering all the sacrifices you have made, you really do have the right to call these people together and tell them that you can't go on paying, and that if they want to keep the paper going they must provide the resources themselves.
Today the news has reached us by telegraph that the Federal Council proposes to suppress the magnanimous Guillaume's Avant-garde.[3] I don't know whether it will really happen, but if for one reason or another the last Bakuninist organ were to disappear, and the Genevans proved unwilling to provide the resources, the Précurseur could all the more readily succumb.
Borkheim is still at Hastings, on the coast, confined to bed with the left side of his body paralysed and will recover, if at all, only very slowly. In other respects he seems cheerful enough, and writes from time to time.
Luckily the Prussians have now also placed a ban on my Diihring.[3] Henceforth nothing may be sold in Germany that is directed against bogus socialist rowdies. Thus every anti-Bakuninist publication by Greulich.b myself, etc., has been banned. In Bismarck's estimation, anarchist and Dühringian cliquishness should lessen our people's cohesion and bring about what he most ardently desires — an attempted coup that would enable him to shoot. Despite all this, our workers in Germany are behaving altogether admirably, and I hope that they will bring the entire Prussian empire to rack and ruin. This much, however, Mr Bismarck will have achieved: When the set-to begins in Russia— and it won't be long now — things wrill also be pretty well au point in Germany.
With warmest regards from Marx and his wife, and hoping to hear better news of you soon,
from your old friend,
F. E.
1879
246
Endnotes
[364] him financial assistance (see Engels' letters to Emil Blank of 16 October and to Ernst Dronke of 20 October and 1 and 13 November 1876 in this volume, pp. 160, 161, 164-65, 171).—289 3fi3 Engels wrote this letter when working on the article 'Natural Science in the Spirit World', which he most probably finished in early 1878. Here the reference is to the books: J. N. Maskelyne, Modern Spiritualism, London, 1876, and A. R. Wallace, On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, London, 1875, Engels' principal sources of information on spiritualists and spiritualism attacked in his article. The article first appeared in the Social-Democratic yearbook Illustrierter Neue Welt-Kalender for 1898 published in Hamburg. Engels incorporated it into Dialectics of Nature (see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 345-55).— 290 3fi4 Presumably an error in Marx's letter: the meeting in Trafalgar Square took place not on Friday, but on Saturday, 29 December 1877. It was called by the supporters of Turkey in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.— 292
[363] rendered
[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
[366] economic and political development from Nikolai Danielson in St Petersburg. The Russian section of Marx's library grew rapidly in this period (see Note 265).—293, 307, 343 3fifi Zimnicea (Zimniza), a village in Romania near which the Russian army crossed the Danube in the early morning of 27 (15) June 1877.—293
[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
[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
[3 6 9] In May 1877, a congress of the Swiss Workers' Union in Neuenburg accepted J o h a n n Philipp Becker's proposal for a merger with the Grütli-Verein, a petty-bourgeois organisation, to form a single Social-Democratic party. A commission established for the purpose and including members of the two organisations drafted a joint contract and a p r o g r a m m e for the Social-Democratic party in Switzerland, which in fact coincided with the Gotha Programme adopted by the G e r m a n Social-Democrats in 1875. In June 1878, a meeting of the Grütli-Verein deputies in Lucerne rejected the contract and adopted the programme subject to further revision. T h e planned merger did not take place (see also present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 218-19).— 294
[121] unity congress in Gotha in May 1875 (see Note 71), whose Executive
[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
[3 7 1] Comparing the different stages of the French Revolution, Engels believed that a Russian revolution would end in the establishment of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, as had happened in France in 1793 when the Jacobins came to power.— 295
[3 7 2] An extract from this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl
[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
[3 7 4] O n 25 (13) December 1877 the Russian army embarked on the decisive
[375] offensive on the Balkan theatre of war. Having crossed the Balkans, Russian troops entered Sofia on 4 January 1878 (23 December 1877), smashed the last Turkish army in the battle of Philippopol (Plovdiv) on 15-17 (3-5) January 1878, and entered Adrianople (Edirne) on 20 (8) January and continued their advance towards Constantinople (Istanbul). On 31 (19) January, Turkey was compelled to sign an armistice in Adrianople.— 296 37D T h e Grand Cophta—the name of an omnipotent and omniscient priest who headed the non-existent Masonic 'Egyptian Lodge' which the famous eighteenth-century impostor 'Count' Cagliostro (Giuseppe Balsamo) claimed to have founded.—296
[376] In the summer of 1876, Russia and Austria-Hungary signed an agreement in Rheinstadt on Austro-Hungarian neutrality in the event of a Russo-Turkish war. They also concluded a secret convention in Budapest in March 1877, under which Russia agreed to Austria-Hungary's occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in exchange for its neutrality.—296
[113] (Ausschuss). The Executive Committee elected at the Gotha Congress had five
[378] Balkans, were agreed on when signing the San Stefano preliminary peace treaty in March 1878 (see Note 430). They were revised to the advantage of Austria-Hungary and Britain at the Berlin congress in June 1878.— 297 878 Under the Paris Peace Treaty concluded in 1856 at the end of the Crimean War (see Note 22), Russia lost the Danube delta and the part of Southern Bessarabia adjacent to it.— 298
[379] Marx is playing on the well-known saying ascribed to Voltaire: 'If God did not
[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
[380] exist, He ought to have been invented.'—299 S80 -phe economic crisis of the 1870s heavily afflicted the miners in South Wales, where many pits were closed clown and unemployment assumed massive proportions. In January 1878, only 20 mines out of 500 were working in Monmouth and Glamorganshire.— 300
[381] On 7 and 8 February 1878, the House of Commons debated additional allocations to the Conservative government in the event of Britain's involve-ment in the Russo-Turkish war. The Liberal leaders, especially Forster and Bright, who had previously opposed such allocations and any anti-Russian action, changed their tactics and did not take part in the final voting; as a result the Conservatives managed to get their demand approved, by a significant majority of 328 to 124.—300
[382] As from 1 January 1874, when universal conscription was introduced in Russia, Poles were also subject to the draft.— 300
[383] At the time of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-29, Prussia's stand towards Russia was one of benevolent neutrality.— 300
[384] The first campaign of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-29 took place in May-October 1828. It revealed that the Russian troops were confronted by a numerically superior Turkish army, its strategy being that of temporising and wearing out the enemy. The second campaign was waged between May and August 1829.—301
[386] In September 1829 Turkey and Russia concluded a treaty in Adrianople which ended the war of 1828-29. Under the treaty Russia obtained the Danube delta, including the islands, and a considerable part of the eastern Black Sea coast south of the Kuban estuary. Turkey was to recognise the autonomy of Moldavia and Wallachia, granting them the right to elect their own hospodars (rulers). Their autonomy was guaranteed by Russia. The Turkish government also undertook to recognise the independence of Greece, whose only obligation 34-406 to Turkey was to pay an annual tribute to the Sultan and abide by all the previous treaties relating to the autonomy of Serbia, which was to be formalised by a special firman.—303
[388] The original is kept at the Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier. The Editors are not in possession of Sigmund Schott's letter, to which Marx is replying.—304
[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
[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
[389] Marx wrote on the envelope of the letter: 'To the Publisher of "Forward", Hornsey Road, Post Office, London, N.'—305
[390] Engels had requested Lopatin to write for the Volks-Kalender for 1879 an article on the trials of the Russian Narodniks (Populists) brought before the court for revolutionary agitation and propaganda in St Petersburg in 1877-early 1878 (see Note 391). However, the article was not needed, since, after the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 462), the Volks-Kalender was closed down.— 306
[391] This letter has come down to us as an extract quoted by Lopatin in French in his letter to Lavrov of 17 April 1878. He also rendered in Russian the substance of the other two parts of Engels' letter: 'He wrote to me to ask for a photograph of the women condemned in the trial of the 50 for Bracke's almanach for 1879. He also wants me to write an article about this trial or about the recent Russian movement, about 16 large-sized pages, for 160 marks=200 francs; 'Engels writes that England shows all signs of an approaching industrial and commercial crisis, which will be a worthy consummation of all separate European crashes: Austrian, Prussian, Russian, etc. So far, two main industries have been severely affected: the cotton industry and the production of iron. The general crash will possibly be delayed until August or September.'—307
[392] Vperyod! (Vol. V, 1877, pp. 1-120) featured the article 'The Outcome of the Reforms. Surveys of the Successes of Economic Exploitation in Russia over Recent Years'. As is clear from Lopatin's letter to Engels of 23 April 1878, its author was Nikolai Kulyabko-Koretsky (pen-name Dahl). The Vorwärts published its German translation under the heading 'Die Folgen der czaristischen Reformen' between 15 February and 15 March 1878.—307
[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
[393] In 1871-73, a single gold coin was introduced in Germany to replace the different currencies of the kingdoms, principalities and duchies.—308
[394] In a letter to Engels of 26 April 1878, Bracke praised the railway project and the tobacco monopoly introduced by Bismarck. But he still regarded as wrong 'any participation by the party in implementing these measures'.— 308
[395] A reference to the economic crisis of 1873, which in Germany lasted into the late 1870s (see also Note 118).—308, 405
[312] Beaumont, President Mac-Mahon's sister-in-law, and had consequently been
[396] Eugen Richter, the leader of the Party of Progress, said in the Reichstag on 10 April 1878 with respect to the Bill introduced by Wilhelm Bracke on the repeal of the law exempting the military from communal taxes (passed on 22 December 1868): 'We consider it important enough to note a change at present in the tactics of the socialist gentlemen.... You, Sirs, obviously do not consider the modern state and its organisation so bad as to make them unworthy of the effort, made by the previous speaker [Bracke] in his speech, to partially improve them.... We will be far from displeased if you follow in our footsteps and bring up our old proposals.'—309
[397] Lothar Bucher had a 'Declaration' printed in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and the Frankfurter Zeitung on 21 June 1878 concerning Marx's and Engels' letter to the editor of The Daily News (see present edition, Vol. 24 pp. 230-31), which many German newspapers had reprinted with the mistake made in the translation. On 27 June, Marx sent his reply to Bucher's 'Declaration' to a number of German newspapers (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 232-33).—310
[12] Marx's letter has not been found.—10, 31, 33, 34, 75, 176, 189, 193, 222, 270, 276, 311, 353, 376, 382, 412
[398] In his 'Declaration' concerning Marx's and Engels' letter to the editor of The Daily News (see Note 397), Lothar Bucher stated that it would take 3,000 lines to refute Marx's 30.—312
[399] On 9 July 1878, the London correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung had a statement printed in which, referring to allegedly 'verified sources', he asserted that Marx had intended to answer Bucher's 'Declaration' in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (see Note 397) with a whole book entitled Herr Bucher.—312
[29] Bismarck spent July and August 1874 at Bad Kissingen where an assassination attempt was made on him on 13 July. It was organised by the Catholic clergy enraged by the Kulturkampf policy he was pursuing (see Note 35). Bismarck was wounded by a shot fired by the artisan Kullmann.— 23, 24, 312
[400] An allusion to the novel by Nikolai Chernyshevsky (What Is to Be Done?), which appeared in French in Lodi, Italy, in 1875.— 312
[405] On 24 May 1878, the majority in the German Reichstag (251 to 57) voted down the government bill directed against socialists, after which the Reichstag was dissolved on 11 June, and new elections were scheduled for 30 July. The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany polled 437,158 votes this time.—314
[406] On 11 May and 2 June 1878, assassination attempts were made on William I, the first by unemployed tinner Max Hödel and the second by anarchist Karl Eduard Nobiling, who had never belonged to the Socialist Workers' Party of 34* Germany. These events provoked a vicious campaign against the socialists and provided a pretext for the promulgation of the Anti-Socialist Law in October 1878 (see Note 462). In his turn, Bismarck used the assassination attempts to break down the resistance of the National Liberals (see Note 540), who had a short while before voted down the government proposal to introduce protective tariffs on iron. As a result of Bismarck's policies, the National Liberal Party lost about a quarter of its seats in the 1878 Reichstag elections.— 314, 419, 424, 449
[4 0 9] O n 4 July 1878, Jenny Longuet, Marx's eldest daughter, gave birth to a baby boy, Henri Longuet, whom the family called Harry.—316
[411] which the latter informed him on 17 July 1878.— 316 4 , 1 In 1877-78, Mary Ellen Burns (Pumps) lived with her relatives in Manchester.—316
[4 1 2] Nachalo (No. 2, April 1878) wrote: 'Arrested in St Petersburg the other day were: 1) Pyankov, detained by the police in Furshtadtskaya St. and beaten within an inch of his life without the slightest provocation; exiled (!!) to Archangel; 2) Goloushev, chief witness in the Zasulich case; 3) Pavlovsky and 4) Lopatin.' Lavrov wrote on 11 August in reply to Engels' letter: ' The news reported by Nachalo relates either to the brother of our Lopatin, a participant in the "trial of the 193", or to his cousin, who has just been deported to Vologda Gubernia, having been involved in the Kiev students' case. Our Lopatin had come over from Switzerland but then left again for a while; I think he will be back in about a month, if not earlier. H e has not left an address, but I had a letter from him about a fortnight ago.'—316 4 1 s Après moi (or nous) le deluge!—a" phrase attributed to Mmle Pompadour or to Mme Du Barry, who addressed it to Louis XV.— 317 4 1 4 This letter was published in English for the first time in: Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, Berlin, 1959, No. 3.— 317
[403] Engels is referring to Rudolf Virchow's speech at the 50th congress of German natural scientists and physicians in Munich on 22 September 1877. Virchow associated Darwinism with the socialist movement and declared it dangerous to the existing social system (see R. Virchow, Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im modernen Staat, Berlin, 1877, S. 12). Engels ironically wrote that Virchow had 'amiably tipped the wink'.—313, 316
[4 1 3] Between 4 and 14 September 1878 Marx stayed with his wife, his daughter
[414] Jenny and his grandson Jean in Malvern.— 318, 322, 324 4 1 6 After a long search, Sorge sent Marx an 'Annual Report of the Secretary of
[416] Part III. Industrial Statistics, Vol. V, Harrisburg, 1878, containing information
[418] This letter was published in English for the first time in part in: K. Marx, On Education, Women and Children. Arranged and edited, with an introduction and new translations by Saul K. Padover. Mc Graw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1975 and 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.—320
[42] Bismarck effected a reconciliation with the Catholic Church in an effort to
[422] La légalité nous tue (legality is killing us): Marx repeats what Jean Pons Viennet, a right-wing representative in the French Chamber of Deputies, said in his speech on 23 March 1833. This was also quoted by the conservative politician Odillon Barrot in his speech to the Constituent Assembly of the French Republic early in 1849.—322
[425] Opening the Reichstag session on 16 September 1878, Count Stolberg-Wernigerode stated the allied governments' conviction that ideas repudiating all norms of law and morality and seriously threatening the state and society had become prevalent among the general public. This, he said, was sufficient grounds for introducing an anti-socialist law.— 323
[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
[421] On 17 September 1878, The Daily News and The Standard carried reports from Reuters and their own correspondents covering the 16 September session of the German Reichstag, at which Stolberg-Wernigerode, Reichensperger, Hell-dorf-Bedroe, Bebel, Eulenburg and Bamberger took the floor.— 322, 324
[426] On 18 September 1878, The Standard, No. 16897, carried an article covering the debate on the Anti-Socialist Bill that had begun in the Reichstag on 16 September. Further on, Engels is referring to the telegraphic communication in the
[427] same issue of the newspaper: 'The German Parliament. The Anti-Socialist Bill.
[430] On 27 September 1878, the Vorwärts, No. 114 (the 'Aus England, London, 20.
[432] dealing with the Anti-Socialist Bill. The Standard was not mentioned in the
[434] As a threat of an armed conflict with Britain emerged in the course of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the tsarist government agreed on an alliance with Afghanistan. The Russian envoy Stoletov, who arrived in Kabul on 22 June 1878, made arrangements with the country's rulers for a Russo-Afghan treaty. However, having settled the Anglo-Russian differences, the tsarist government decided against such an alliance.—332
[436] Marx may have had in mind the professor of political economy at Kiev University Nikolai Sieber, one of the first to popularise Marx's economic theory in Russia. In 1876-78, Sieber published a series of articles entitled Marx's Economic Theory and some polemic articles against the Russian critics of Marx, Yuli Zhukovsky and Boris Chicherin.— 334
[437] In May 1876, Franz Mehring publicly accused Leopold Sonnemann of using his public position as editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt to engage in speculation during the Griinderjahre (see Note 118) and extract considerable profits. Sonnemann having denounced this accusation as slander, Franz Mehring had legal proceedings instituted against him. The court of the first instance found Sonnemann not guilty. In June 1877, the court of appeal found that Mehring's accusations were justified but still left Sonnemann unpunished.— 334
[438] In the late 1850s, the Mexican government of Zuloaga and Miramön issued state bonds that became an object of large-scale speculation in France (see present edition, Vol. 19, p. 197).—335
[439] Marx most probably sent Moritz Kaufmann his article 'Mr. George Howell's History of the International Working-Men's Association' (see present edition, Vol. 24), a reply to Howell's 'The History of the International Association' (The Nineteenth Century, July 1878) presenting the International's history in a distorted way.— 335
[440] Hermann Arnoldt, a Königsberg Social-Democrat and member of the local Johann Jacoby Fund committee (a fund for assisting the Social-Democratic press), requested Engels to accept for safekeeping the Fund's securities to the amount of about 3,000 marks, fearing confiscation by the Prussian government after the promulgation of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 462).— 335
[441] This letter was occasioned by Marx's and Engels' attempts to get Liebknecht a job on the London Whitehall Review, since the Vorwärts, where he had been a member of staff, had been banned with the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany on 21 October 1878. On 4 November, Marx sent a letter through a third party to Natalie Liebknecht, which she received on 14 November. Its contents are not known, but Liebknecht must have read it, since on 18 November he thanked Engels and Marx for their efforts to find him a job (see also this volume, p. 352).— 336
[442] As can be seen from the rough draft of this letter Marx had intended to alter the original arrangement of the text. The alterations have been taken into account in the present edition.— 336
[443] Alfred Talandier's letter to the editor of La Marseillaise of 2 October 1878, which calumniated Maltman Barry, was printed by that newspaper on 6 October (No. 202) in the section 'Congrès ouvrier'.— 336
[445] 1878 by several former members of the General Council of the IWMA, who had refused to recognise the resolutions of the Hague Congress (see Note 20). Acting jointly with the bourgeois radicals, including Charles Bradlaugh and Pratt, they unsuccessfully tried to reinstitute the International on their own platform.—339 44:1 Alfred Talandier was the permanent Paris correspondent of The National Reformer edited by Charles Bradlaugh.— 340
[446] The name partisans of the 'opportunist' republic in France was applied to moderate republicans (Gembetta, Grévy et al.), who fought against Mac-Mahon's attempts to restore the monarchy (see notes 283 and 367).— 340
[447] On 22 September 1878, The National Reformer, Vol. XXXII, No. 12, carried a short note alleging close relationship between Mr Maltman Barry and the Paris police.— 341
[448] A reference to Napoleon Ill's wife Eugénie de Montijo de Guzman who lived in England after the fall of the Second Empire; following her husband's death in 1873, she assumed leadership of the Bonapartist party.— 341
[449] On 23 December 1871, The Eastern Post printed Marx's letter to the editor concerning Charles Bradlaugh's slanderous attacks on him (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 62-63). The same issue featured a report of the meeting of the International's General Council held on 19 December 1871 at which Marx had exposed Bradlaugh's activities.—341
[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
[62] No. 140, 2 December 1874. After Marx's intervention, the error was set right
[453] The Civil War in America broke out in April 1861. The Southern slaveholders rose against the Union and formed the Confederacy of the Southern States. The war was caused mainly by the conflict between the two social systems: the capitalist system of wage labour established in the North and the slave system dominant in the South. The Civil War, which had the nature of a bourgeois-democratic revolution, passed two stages in its development: the period of a constitutional war for the maintenance of the Union and that of a revolutionary war for the abolition of slavery. The decisive role in the defeat of the Southern slaveholders and the victory of the North in April 1865 was played by the workers and farmers. Marx analysed the causes and the nature of the war in his articles published in the Viennese newspaper Die Presse (see present edition, Vol. 19).— 344, 357
[454] The next two passages were quoted by Nikolai Danielson, in a somewhat modified form, in the preface to the first Russian edition of Volume Two of Capital, St Petersburg, 1885, p. XII.—344 4S"' A reference to the following passage in the second German edition of Volume One of Capital: 'And, as a matter of fact, the value also of each single yard is but the materialised form of the same definite and socially fixed quantity of homogeneous human labour' (see also K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Part I, Chapter III, Section 2, present edition. Vol. 35).— 346 456 Cf. the French edition of Volume One of Capital, Part V, Ch. XVI: 'I always assume the actual state of affairs, which, with a few exceptions, prevails everywhere, i.e., that the capitalist pays all preliminary expenses, including the worker's wages.'—346 457 Cf. K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Part V, Ch. XVI (present edition, Vol. 35).—346
[457] and C, London, 1963, as item No. 247. The letter was said to take up half a
[458] page and was rendered in English, up to the passage published in this volume, as
[3] Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor, took a rest cure at Harrogate between 24 November and 15 December 1873.— 3, 17
[350] Engels' information about the losses sustained by the Russian army at Plevna and its 'collapse' and 'disintegration' was grossly exaggerated. There was prolonged fighting for this strategically located fortress from July to November 1877. After three abortive attempts to take Plevna by storm, in which the Russian army lost about 25,000 men, it was decided to resort to a siege, which began in September. On 28 November (10 December) 1877, the totally isolated 50,000-strong garrison tried to break through but, having lost about 6,000 men, surrendered. The fall of Plevna allowed the Russian command to release over 100,000 men for an advance beyond the Balkans.—282, 293, 297
[367] Following the republicans' overwhelming victory at the elections to the Chamber of Deputies on 14 October 1877 (see Note 283) the Broglie ministry was forced to resign on November 19. The attempt by Mac-Mahon and his followers to effect a coup d'état on 13 December fell through due to the resistance of the junior officer corps and especially the body of privates, who shared the republican leanings of the French peasantry. On 14 December, Jules Dufaure's government was formed. In January 1879, Mac-Mahon was obliged to resign before his term of office had expired. Jules Grévy, a moderate republican, was elected president of the Republic. The bourgeois-republican system was definitively established in France.— 293, 294
[373] Marx, On Colonialism and Modernization, Anchor Books, New York, 1969.—296 •373 T h e letters to Liebknecht of 4 and 11 February 1878 were despatched following a request contained in his letter to Marx of 22 January 1878. Liebknecht asked for one or several articles as preparatory material for a speech on the Eastern Question in the German Reichstag. Both of Marx's letters were published anonymously in the second edition of Liebknecht's pamphlet Zur orientalischen Frage oder Soll Europa kosakisch werden? Ein Mahnwort an das deutsche Volk. The afterword to this edition which appeared in Leipzig a month after the first edition, on 27 February 1878, ended as follows: 'By way of conclusion, I am supplying two letters from a friend who has made a more thorough study of the Eastern Question than anyone else. The clarity of judgment, sharp insight, all-embracing knowledge — all point to an expert. Ex ungue leonem' (Judge the lion from his claws).— 296, 299
[143] many Communist League leaders and activists in the summer of 1851 and their
[1] This letter was published in English for the first time in Letters to Dr. Kugelmann by Karl Marx, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.—3, 17, 21, 31, 32
[2] Worried by the report of Marx's illness in the Frankfurter Zeitung, Ludwig Kugelmann wrote to Engels on 13 January 1874 asking him for more information concerning the state of Marx's health.—3
[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
[365] t n 1876-78, Marx received a considerable number of works on Russia's social,
[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
[401] The first complete edition of Engels' Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. Philosophie. Politische Oekonomie. Sozialismus, with the author's preface, was published in Leipzig in early July 1878.— 312, 313, 316
[402] On 18 July 1878, the London journal Nature (Vol. XVIII, No. 455, p. 316) printed the programme of the 51st congress of natural scientists and physicians scheduled for 18-24 September in Kassel. Among the reports to be read was Oscar Schmidt's 'On the Relation of Darwinism to Social Democracy'. On 23 July, Oscar Schmidt stated his willingness to send Engels a copy of his report, which was to appear in the November issue of the Deutsche Rundschau. It also came out as a pamphlet: O. Schmidt, Darwinismus und Socialdemocratie, Bonn, 1878.— 313, 317
[404] Engels intended to subject to criticism the Darwinians', including Oscar Schmidt's, writings against socialism in his Dialectics of Nature (see present edition, Vol. 25, p. 314), but did not carry out this plan.—314, 317
[407] " w e a r e D u t d 0g S;' ('Hunde sind wir ja doch!'). This is how, according to August Bebel, the German democratic political writer Luis Bamberger described the treatment which the National Liberals received from Bismarck.— 314, 322, 324
[4 0 8] T h e reptile fund—the special fund at Bismarck's disposal for bribing the press and individual journalists. Reptiles was the name used by the left-wing press to designate periodicals which defended the interests of the government and had been bribed by it.— 315, 328, 334, 421
[4 1 0] Engels is referring to the birth of the eighth child in Philipp Pauli's family, of
[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
[415] Internal Affairs of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for 1876-1877',
[419] After Lizzy Burns' death on 12 September 1878, Engels left for Littlehampton (on 16 September).—321, 325, 327, 330, 331
[420] A reference to the Anti-Socialist Law. The discussion of the bill began in the Reichstag on 16 September 1878 (see Note 462).—321, 322, 328, 332
[423] The Party of the Centre, a political party of German Catholics, was formed in 1870-71 following the merger of the Catholic groups in the Prussian Landtag and the German Reichstag (the deputies of these parties sat in the centre of the assembly hall). The Party of the Centre normally took a non-committal approach, manoeuvring between the pro-government parties and the left opposition in the Reichstag. It united different social sections among the Catholic clergy, landowners, bourgeois and part of the peasantry (mostly in small and medium states in Western and South-Western Germany), and supported their separatist and anti-Prussian leanings. Although in opposition to the Bismarck government, the Party of the Centre nevertheless voted for its repressive measures against the working-class and socialist movement. Engels described it in detail in his essays 'The Role of Force in History' (see present edition, Vol. 26) and 'What Now?' (Vol. 27).—322, 325, 328
[424] In his speech to the Reichstag on 16 September 1878, August Bebel refuted the groundless accusations against the Social-Democrats which had given Bismarck a pretext to introduce the Anti-Socialist Bill. He noted that time would show its pointlessness, since the Social-Democrats would be able to disseminate their ideas even working underground.— 322, 324, 326, 328
[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
[428] Speech of Prince Bismarck' dealing with the Reichstag sitting of 17 Sep-
[431] September' section) featured extracts from a number of British newspapers
[455] From 1877 Johann Philipp Becker was editor and publisher of the Swiss
[435] Marx's letters to the British clergyman Moritz Kaufmann of 3 and 10 October 1878 are replies to the latter's request that he look through Kaufmann's article about himself, which was to appear in the Leisure Hour magazine in December 1878 and to be included in a book on the history of socialism he was preparing for publication. Kaufmann's book Utopias; or, Schemes of Social Improvement. From Sir Thomas More to Karl Marx came out in London in 1879. Marx read through the last two chapters.— 332, 333, 334
[450] The address on the envelope is in Eleanor Marx's hand: 'N. Danielson, Esq.,