1880
Dear Liebknecht,
Your letter arrived slap in the middle of the festive hurly-burly which, in view of the multiplication of the Marx family ' and also because two of our friends[3] from Manchester were staying with us, assumed pretty formidable proportions. In order to forward your letter I had to consult the latest POST OFFICE DIRECTORY which was not to be had except at some distance from this house. Enfiri' I laid my hands on it at the beginning of this week and sent your letter to Alexander Macdonald Esq. M.P. Well Hill (according to the DIRECTORY, Well hi.) by Hamilton, North Britain (N.B.) Macdonald is the bigger scoundrel of the two [2] but more deeply involved officially with the coal miners. Maybe you will get his reply before mine. As soon as Parliament opens, you can address your letters simply: Alexander Macdonald, House of Commons.
Since you say you have asked Macdonald for the documents mentioned in the main body of your letter, I shall of course do nothing further on this score until I hear from you again.
The silver and/or bimetallism [3] affair is the chimera of a few cotton speculators in Liverpool. Since it is virtually only silver that circulates among the Indian and Chinese traders, and silver has fallen from '/i5.5 to ' /17.5-[1] /is of the value of gold over the past 10 years, this circumstance has, of course, further accentuated the crisis in the said article brought about by the over-export of cotton goods to the Far East. In the first place, prices fell as the result of increased supply, and then, on top ofthat, these depressed prices represented an even lower gold value than hitherto so far as the English exporter was concerned. The crafty men of Liverpool, to whom it was quite inconceivable that cotton could ever fall in price as well, now blamed everything on the difference in the currency and thought that all would be in order and the Indo-Chinese trade would flourish, once it had been decreed here that silver should again be '/[15]-[5] of the value of gold; i. e. that the British public must put up with silver at 13%-15% above its value so that cotton goods exporters might profit by that amount. That's all there is to the swindle, and a few more CROTCHET-MONGERS have latched on to it. It was never of any significance. Not long ago The Times was phi-lanthropic enough to opine that gold currency was unsuited to so poor a country as Germany and that it would be preferable to revert to the more convenient silver currency — in the unspoken hope of creating an outlet for the London money market where the latter could dispose of its depreciated silver at a price higher than its value. Again a pious hope, of course, just like our friend Bismarck's childish fancy not long since to go back to bimetallism and reissue the taler as good for all payments, although it is worth 15% less than the amount it is supposedly good for. However, the German money chaps have grown so crafty under friend Bismarck that this no longer proved an attraction and the talers that had been issued came hurtling back at lightning speed into the Bank and the imperial treasuries.
I, too, wish you and all the others success in the New Year, as I do the Russian revolution which will surely get under way in the course of it and at once impose a quite different character upon Europe. For this too we are largely indebted to our friend Bismarck. With his ostentatious trip to Austria and the alliance he concluded there [4] he presented the Russian government at precisely the right moment (for us!) with the alternative: war or revolution. Quel génie!"
Your
F.E.
3. Engels to Carl Hirsch. 17February
2. Marx to Charles Walstone ( Waldstein). 26 January[5](1)
If I don't find you in, I shall leave this note for you. I am prepared to come at 7 o'clock on Wednesday evening, WIND AND WEATHER PERMIT-TING. THAT IS TO SAY, IF IT BE NOT TOO COLD FOR THE PRESENT CONDITIONS OF MY corpus delicti} For in this world all promises are relative.
Meanwhile, salut
Your
Moor
ENGELS TO CARL HIRSCH
IN LONDON
[London,] 17 February 1880
Dear Hirsch,
Many thanks for the banker's letter which I return herewith. But I have not the faintest idea what can be meant by 'negotiated à 340b'. I can discover no rational connection whatever between this figure and German or Austrian currency. If the man would tell us how many marks he thinks he will be able to get for 200 Austrian gulden, Borkheim could decide what to do, and I think he would probably send them to him for realisation.
Your
F.E.
4. Marx to Bernhard Kraus. 26 March[6]
Dear Dr Kraus [Kranz?],
I had quite forgotten that today was Good Friday; hence found the Café Royal shut on arriving there with my daughter Eleanor at 12 o'clock, waited until 1 o'clock and, not seeing you arrive, [proceeded?] to your hotel. Would you be so kind as to write to me today — so that I have your reply tomorrow — and let me know whether you might honour us with your company at dinner this Sunday at 5 o'clock (not 2).
With best wishes from Miss Eleanor.
Yours,
Karl Marx
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
5. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. / April[7]
Dear Old Man,
This is to notify you that I have taken out a money order for you at the post office for four pounds sterling — should amount to 100 frs 80 cts — and hope it will reach you safely. I trust that your health and that of your wife has improved now that the bitter winter is happily behind us. Here things are so-so. Mrs Marx is still not quite up to the mark and Marx, too, could be better. When winter's over, he always has his worst time; his coughing fits prevent him from sleeping.
For the rest, things have reverted to what they were in 1850. The Workers' Society has split up into a multitude of parties[8]— Most here, Rackow there — and it is as much as we can do not to get drawn into this maelstrom.(1) So many storms in a teacup, which may have an altogether salutary effect on some of the participants in that they contribute to their development but, so far as the march of events is concerned, whether 100 German working men here declare themselves for this side or for that is pretty immaterial. If they could exert any influence on the English — but there's no question ofthat. In his thirst for action Most cannot keep still but nor, for that matter, can he get anything done; people in Germany just won't see that, because Most has been statutorily slung out of the country, the moment of revolution is at hand. The Freiheit is to become, by hook or by crook, the most revolutionary paper in the world, but this cannot be achieved simply by repeating the word 'revolution' in every line. Luckily it matters very little what's in the paper and what isn't. The same thing applies to the Zurich organ,b which advocates revolution one day, only to declare on the next that a violent upheaval is the greatest of misfor-tunes, which is afraid on the one hand of being outdone by Most's rhetoric and fears on the other that the workers may take its own rhetoric to heart. Well, take your pick between the empty rantings of the Freiheit and the narrow philistinism of the Sozialdemokrat.
I fear that our friends in Germany are deluding themselves as to the kind of organisation that ought to be maintained under present circumstances. That elected members of parliament should wish to place themselves in the van because there would otherwise be no leadership— to that I have no objection. But they can neither demand nor impose the implicit obedience that could be demanded by the former party leadership, specifically elected for the purpose. Least of all under present circumstances, without a press, without mass meetings. The more loose-knit the organisation now seems to be, the more tightly-knit it is in reality. Instead of this, the old system is to be retained, the party leadership is to have the final say (although there is no congress to discipline or, if necessary, dismiss it), and anyone who attacks one of its members is branded a heretic. At the same time, the best of them are themselves aware that they have in their midst all sorts of incapable and otherwise not very savoury persons, and they must be obtuse indeed if they fail to see that it is not they who are in control of their organ, but Höchberg, thanks to his money-bags, and with him his fellow philistines Schramm and Bernstein. In my view, the old party, together with its former organisation, is finished. When, as may be expected, the European movement shortly gets going again, then it will be joined by the vast mass of the German proletariat, of which the 500,000 men of 1878 [9] will form the trained and educated nucleus, and then, too, the old 'rigorous organisation' de-riving from the Lassallean tradition will become a brake which, though it might hold back a waggon, no one could hope to apply to an avalanche.
At the same time, these men are doing a number of things which may wholly disrupt the party. First, the party is to go on maintaining its former agitators and editors by saddling itself with a mass of papers which contain nothing more than may be found in any middle-class local rag. And the workers are supposed to tag along with that indefinitely! Secondly, their bearing in the Reichstag and in the Saxon Diet is for the most part so meek as to discredit both them and the party in the eyes of the whole world; they make 'positive' suggestions to the existing government as to how it might do better in minor questions of detail, etc. And the workers, who have been declared outside the law and delivered up, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of the police, are expected to regard this as adequate representation! Thirdly, there is their tolerance of the philistine petty bour-geoiserie of the Sozialdemokrat. In every letter we are told that we must
6. Engels to H. Meyer. 3 April
on no account believe any reports of splits or differences of opinion within the party, but everyone who comes here from Germany assures us that our people are completely bewildered by this conduct on the part of their leaders and that they by no means agree with it. Nor could it be otherwise, given the character of our workers which has so splendidly stood the test. It is a peculiarity of the German movement that all the mistakes committed by the leadership are invariably put right by the masses, and no doubt such will again be the case this time. ' ° Well, keep your pecker up and drop us a line occasionally. Borkheim is still in pretty well the same helpless condition as before.[3]
Your
F.E.
ENGELS TO H. MEYER
IN LONDON
[London,] 3 April 1880 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Mr H. Meyer,
Your favour of 25 March ' ' did not come into my hands until late at night on Saturday, 27 March, and hence, if only for that reason, I could not accept your invitation.
In view of the rifts and differences of opinion that have recently occurred among German Social-Democrats here and elsewhere, I am unable for the time being to declare myself in favour either of one party or of the other, especially as I cannot but reprobate, not only the policy of the Zurich Sozialdemokrat, but also and no less that of the London Freiheit*
See present edition, Vol. 45, p. 349.-b See this volume, p. 7.
I would request you to be good enough to convey this to the executive, and meanwhile remain
Yours very truly,
F. Engels
time
7. Engels to August Bebel. After 27 April[12]
[...]a so as to make the whole thing impossible without actually prohibiting it.
Mr Hasselmann will soon become harmless if you people bring to light really compromising facts about him and take the wind out of his sails in the Reichstag, i. e. proceed in a frankly revolutionary way, which can be done by using quite temperate language, as you yourself did in exemplary fashion in your speech on the persecutions.[13] If, however, a person is constantly afraid of being thought by the philistine, as often happens, to be a bit more extreme than he really is, and if in fact the enclosed cutting from the Kölnische Leitung is correct in re-porting that the Social-Democrats have brought a motion intended to restore the guild privilege of trading in home-made goods, then the Hasselmanns and Mosts will have an easy task.
None of this, however, is really of much consequence. What is now keeping the party alive is unobtrusive, spontaneous activity on the part of individuals; like its organisation, it is kept going by their irre-pressible journeyings. In Germany we have fortunately reached the stage when every action of our adversaries is advantageous to us; when all historical forces are playing into our hands, when nothing,
The beginning of the letter is missing.
absolutely nothing, can happen without our deriving advantage from it. For that reason we can quietly allow our adversaries to work for us. Bismarck is working for us like a real Trojan. He has now won Hamburg for us [14] and will shortly also make us a present, first of Altona, and then of Bremen. The National Liberals ' [5] are working for us, even though all they do is submit to kicks and vote taxes. The Catholics are working for us, even though they voted first against, and then for, the Anti-Socialist Law, ' (1) in return for which they, too, have simply been delivered by Bismarck over to the tender mercies of the government, i. e. also placed outside the law. Anything we can do is a mere drop in the ocean compared with what events are doing for us at this moment. Bismarck's feverish activity, which is throwing everything into disorder and putting everything out of joint without achiev-ing anything of a remotely positive nature; which is stretching the philistine's tax-paying potential to the utmost limit, and this for nothing and worse than nothing; which wants one thing one day and the opposite the next and is forcibly driving into the arms of the revolution the philistine who would so gladly grovel at his feet — this is our strongest ally, and I'm delighted at your being able to confirm from actual observation that there has in fact been a shift to the left, as was inevitable in the circumstances.
In France, too, things are progressing well. Our communist viewpoint is breaking new ground everywhere and the best of those advocating it are all of them former anarchists who have come over to us without our raising a finger/ Unanimity has thus been established among European socialists; any who are still shilly-shallying aren't worth mentioning now that the last remaining sect, the anarchists, has melted away. There, too, we find increasingly a general shift to the left among the bourgeois and peasants, as you have already remarked; but there's one snag here: this shift to the left is primarily tending towards a war of retribution and that must be avoided.
The victory of the Liberals here has at least one good aspect in that it puts a spoke in the wheel of Bismarck's foreign policy.[17] Since he might just as well dismiss the Russian war from his mind now, he will, as usual, doubtless sell his ally — Austria — to the first comer. After all, the bitter experiences of 1864-66 have already shown the Aus-trians that Bismarck seeks allies only to betray them ' [8] — but they're too stupid and will again fall into the trap.
8. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 4 May
In Russia, too, everything is proceeding splendidly, despite judicial murder, banishments and an appearance of calm. You can't banish sheer lack of money. Not one banker will make a loan without a guarantee from the Imperial Assembly. Hence the present desperate recourse to an internal loan. On paper it will be a success, in reality a total failure. And then they will have to convene some assembly or other if only to obtain cash — always supposing something else doesn't happen in the meantime.
Kindest regards to you and Liebknecht from Marx and
Yours
F. E.
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [19]
IN LONDON
London, 4 May 1880
My dear Lafargue,
What are we to do about the introduction Malon has submitted? [20]
Grateful as I am for his good intentions, what is needed here are facts, and where would he get them from? The history of German socialism from 1843 to 1863 is not yet in print, and Malon's German friends in Zurich know hardly anything about that period, which preceded their entry into political life. So it is natural enough that Malon's introduction should omit the most important facts while going into details which can hardly interest the French reader and should, besides, be riddled with mistakes of a fairly serious kind. To mention only one — Lassalle was never editor of the Neue Rheinische Leitung. He never so much as contributed to it, if one excepts a feuilleton in a single issue— a feuilleton which was, moreover, completely rewritten by the editorial staff. At that time Lassalle was almost wholly taken up with the adulteries and divorce proceedings of Countess Hatzfeldt and her Bibliothèque a« la REVUE SOCIALISTE
X.
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9. Marx to Paul Lafargue. About 4- 5 May
husband [2] ' ; and had he offered to join the editorial department, we should have refused outright to associate ourselves with a man up to his eyes in the filth necessarily arising from the conduct of such a scandalous case. Neither Marx nor I have ever collaborated with Lassalle.
In about 1860 he suggested we should join him in founding a big daily newspaper in Berlin, but the conditions we laid down were such that he was bound to find them unacceptable.[22]
Come to that, if someone is needed to introduce me to the French public, as is very possible, it seems to me that it could only be you, who have taken the trouble to translate my articles* and who alone are in a position to get hold of the necessary information which I have asked Marx to let you have. To my mind, I owe it to you as much as to myself to take on no one else.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
9
MARX T O PAUL LAFARGUE [2 3]
IN LONDON
[London, circa 4-5 May 1880]
Dear Lafargue,
Here is the fruit of my consultation (of yesterday evening) with Engels. Polish the phrases, leaving the gist intact.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
10. Marx to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis. 27 June[24]
IN THE HAGUE
London, 27 June 1880 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sir,
At the urgent insistence of my doctor I must refrain from work of any kind for some time to come; [indeed]r I should already have left London on a recuperative trip to the seaside or mountains had I not been prevented from doing so by the very serious illness of my wife. Letters sent to the above address, however, will always find me, as they will be forwarded.
But my present state of health apart, I could not have complied with your request,[25] if only because I don't know enough Dutch to be able to judge whether this or that expression is appropriate.
Nevertheless, to go by the essays of yours I have read in the Jahrbuch der Sozialwissenschaft (Volume I, Second Half),[26] I have not the slightest doubt that you are the right man to provide the Dutch with a résumé of Capital—I would also mention en passant that Mr Schramm (C. A. S., p. 81)r misconstrues my theory of value. From a note in Capital to the effect that A. Smith and Ricardo are mistaken in lumping together value and price of production[2] (1) (let alone market prices, therefore) — he could already have gathered that the connection between 'value' and 'price of production', hence also between 'value' and the market prices that oscillate about the 'price of production', has no place whatever in the theory of value as such, still less can it be anticipated by cliché-ridden, scholastic generalisations.
Under present circumstances the 2nd part of Capital[26] cannot appear in Germany, which I am quite glad of inasmuch as certain economic phenomena are, at this precise moment, entering upon a new phase of development and hence call for fresh appraisal.
With kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
[Karl Marx]
11. Engels to Minna Gorbunova. 22 July
11
ENGELS TO MINNA GORBUNOVA
IN BIARRITZ
London, 22 July 1880
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Madam,
After a number of vagaries, your letter from Biarritz [2 9] has safely reached me here, where I have been living for the past 10 years, and I hasten to let you have such information as it is within my power to give.
I have talked over the matter with my friend Marx, and we both take the view that no better sources on the English industrial school system are to be had over here than the official reportsa you already possess. The content of other non-official literature on the subject amounts to little more than window-dressing, where it is not expressly designed to provide an advertisement for some humbug or other. I shall have a look round and see if I can find anything that might interest you among the reports of the SCHOOL BOARDS and the Education Department in recent years, and shall send you further details if you would be so kind as to let me know to what address I should write or send packages, either within the next fortnight or so, or else in the autumn (since I shall be away from London for some time [3 0]). The industrial education of young people is in an even worse state here than in most countries on the Continent and what is being done, is done mostly for appearances' sake. You will have seen from the actual reports that the 'INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS' are by no means on a par with continental industrial schools, but are a kind of penal institute where neglected children are committed for a given number of years by order of court.
On the other hand, the efforts made in America might perhaps be of greater interest to you. The United States has sent a wealth of material connected with this to the Paris Exhibition,[31] material which must be lodged in the big library in the rue Richelieu [32] and of which you will find details in the catalogue of the exhibition at the said library.
I am further endeavouring to find out for you the address of a Mr Da Costaa in Paris; his sonb played a part in the Commune in 1871, and the father is himself employed in education, is passionately interested in his profession and would be more than willing to be of assistance to you.
Again, the schools for the further education of adult working men over here are not as a rule up to very much. Where anything worth while is done, it is usually thanks to special circumstances and individual personalities, i. e. local and temporary. In all such matters, the only element that systematically recurs here is humbug. The best of establishments relapse after a short while into a stultifying routine and the avowed purpose increasingly becomes a pretext for the em-ployees to earn their keep as comfortably as possible. So much is this the rule that even establishments for the education of the children of the middle classes — bourgeoisie — form no exception. Indeed I have latterly come across a number of notable instances of this very kind.
I am sorry that at this stage I should not myself be able to place any fresh material at your disposal; for a number of years it has unfortunately been impossible for me to follow the course of public education in any detail. Otherwise I should have been only too delighted to be able to offer you more. Everything that furthers public education and hence the movement, however indirectly, in a country such as Russia, which stands on the threshold of a world historical crisis, and has produced a dynamic party of exceptional devotion and vigour — everything of this nature commands our most ardent sympathy.
I am, Madam,
Yours truly,
F. Engels
13. Engels to Minna Gorbunova. 2 August
12. Marx to Philip Stephen King. 27 July[3 3]
Dear Sir,
Please send me: Part IV of Reports from Her M's Consuls.
Yours truly,
Karl Marx
13
ENGELS T O MINNA GORBUNOVA
IN BIARRITZ
London, 2 August 1880
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Madam,
In all haste — for several days my house has been full of friends, come on a visit from the provinces — herewith the address:
M. Da Costa, 40 rue Gay-Lussac, Paris. Since I have only seen the old gentleman once and very briefly, he will certainly not remember me. But all you need say by way of introduction is that Marx obtained the address expressly for you through his son-in-law Longuet — who is a friend of young Da Costa's. (1)
14. Engels to Minna Gorbunova. 5 August
In the course of this week I shall have time to write to you at greater length, and shall address my letter to Paris, poste restante.
Meanwhile I remain,
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
guage of the original (German) m the book _ , ,. . , . „ .. , . , . ,, • , .. „ _ , ' „ , , Published in English lor the first JVeizdanmye pisma t. tngelsa (t. Engels ° time
14
ENGELS TO MINNA GORBUNOVA [3 4]
IN PARIS
London, 5 August 1880
122a Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Madam,
Further to my brief note sent to Biarritz,b all I can tell you is that I don't in fact know of any documents or reports I could recommend to you other than those first enumerated by yourself in your previous esteemed letter.[35] However, after the school holidays, when the various people I'm acquainted with return, I shall make further inquiries, and if I find anything new, shall send it to you in Moscow [36] or report to you further. In order that such correspondence should appear perfectly innocuous, I shall write in English and sign myself E. Burns. When communicating with me from there, you could address your letters: Miss E. Burns, 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W., London. An inner envelope is unnecessary; she is my niece.
I was most interested to hear about your activities in Moscow and about the prospect of your setting up an industrial school with the help of the president of the 3CMCTBOC37; we, too, have the statistical reports of all the Russian 3eMCTBa over here, as in general quite excellent material on economic conditions in Russia, but unfortunately I cannot look it out at this moment as it is at Marx's house and he and all his family are away at the seaside.[38] However it wouldn't be much help to me in answering your inquiry,3Q since this calls for a knowledge of the relevant branches of the cottage industry, its operation, products and competitiveness, and that can only be acquired on the spot. All in all it seems to me that most, at any rate, of the branches of industry you mentioned would probably be capable of competing with large-scale industry for some time yet. Industrial revolutions such as these progress extremely slowly; even the handloom has not yet been entirely superseded in some branches in Germany, whereas in England those same branches did away with it 20 or 30 years ago. In Russia that process might well be even slower. After all, the long winter provides the peasant with a great deal of spare time, and even if he only earns something during the day, that is still so much gain. Admittedly these primitive forms of production cannot escape their ultimate demise, and in a highly developed industrial country, as here, for example, one might claim that it would be more humane to accelerate this process of dissolution rather than prolong it. In Russia the situation may well be different, especially as there is some prospect there of violent changes in the political situation as a whole. The minor palliatives which have proved virtually useless in Germany, as you yourself have of course discovered, and also elsewhere, might in Russia help the people on occasion to surmount the political crisis and keep their industry going until such time as they also have a say. The schools, however, might perhaps enable them to get at least some idea of what they ought to say. And all genuine educative elements that are dispersed among the people will, to a greater or lesser extent, contribute to that end. Technical instruction might perhaps best achieve its aim if it sought, on the one hand, to organise the operations at any rate of the more viable branches of traditional industry in a more rational way and, on the other, to provide the children with sufficient training in general technology to facilitate their transition to other industries. Aside from such generalisations there is, at this distance, little to be said. Except that this much seems pretty clear to me: The Moscow gouvernement is unlikely to become a seat of large-scale industry in the near future, since it is remote from the coal-mining areas, and wood fuel is already in short supply. Cottage industry in some, if not always the same, form might persist there for a bit longer even if protective tariffs were to make feasible the introduction of this or that large enterprise, such as the cotton industry of Shuya and Ivanovo in the Vladimir gouvernement. And, after all, the only way one can really help the peasants is to see that they get more land and cultivate it in associations.
Your report about the incipient decay of the oöuniHa[340] and the artel(1) ' confirms news that has also come to us from another quarter. Nevertheless this process of disintegration may go on for a very long time. And since the general current in Western Europe is flowing in precisely the opposite direction and, with the next convulsion, must acquire a strength of a quite different order, it may be expected that in Russia, too, which has certainly produced a great many critical minds over the past 30 years, this current will still be strong enough to make a timely appeal to the people's innate, millennial urge to associate before that urge is completely extinguished. For this reason, productive associations and other means of promoting the associate system among the people in Russia should also be looked at from an aspect other than the Western one. Admittedly they still remain no more than minor palliatives. I remain,
Yours most respectfully,
F. Engels
15. Marx to John Swinton. 15 August
Dear Sir,
I got only today your letter.[42] I am staying here with my family, and, if your time allows, shall be very glad to see you in Ramsgate.[43]
Yours truly
Karl Marx
[On the side reserved for the address]
John Swinton, Esq. 12 Norfolk Street, Strand, London
16. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 17 August[4 4]
Dear Old Man,
Your postcard was not forwarded to me here (1) ° until today and I immediately took out a money order for you for two pounds sterling, i. e. 50 frs and a few centimes (on which I wrote my London address). It goes without saying, of course, that we wouldn't let you be thrown out of your house while we were restoring our health at the seaside here. There's no need for you to make such a to-do about a few pence; that sort of thing is a matter of course between old com-rades-in-arms who have been fighting under the same flag for forty years and who hearken to the same trumpet-calls.
We are all here — Marx, his wife and his daughters, together with husbands and children,[3] and the visit is proving especially beneficial to Marx, who, I hope, will be completely refreshed. His wife has unfortunately been ailing for some time, but is as cheerful as could be expected. I shall be returning to London next week but Marx ought to stay here as long as he possibly can.
Apropos, I should perhaps add that there's been a great muddle over the letters. Marx has never had letters of yours for safe-keeping, whereas Borkheim was supposed to have had some of yours and, when Mrs Marx was still in Geneva with you, you got her to ask Marx to get Borkheim to give them to him.(2) But now Borkheim de-nies ever having got any from you; so what the actual facts of the case are, we over here are unable to fathom.
Well, I hope that, for the time being at least, you have extricated yourself from the worst of your predicament and will get a bit of peace. Kindest regards from us all, and in particular from,
Your
F. Engels
17. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 30 August
Dear Sorge,
I am writing from Ramsgate, where I now am with my wife[38]; before that I took her up to Manchester for a consultation with my friend Dr Gumpert. She is suffering from a dangerous liver complaint.
In consequence of our wanderings I only got your letter very belatedly. I am entirely of your opinion. If you can't get hold of any money — i.e. S 200 — in YANKEELAND, the matter will have to be dropped.[45] What the position is here will be evident to you if only from the fact that the Egalité went under for want of 3,000 francs.[46]
I will, for form's sake, let Liebknecht know about the affair.
The article from The Sun received with many thanks.[47] Though he
18. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 3 September
may have the best of intentions, the man nevertheless shows that he doesn't understand the first rudiments of the matter about which he writes.
De minimis non curat lex,' and among those minima I number, inter alia, the priestly Douai.[48]
With warmest regards,
Your
Karl Marx
18
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE (1)
IN LONDON
[Bridlington Quay,] 3 September 1880
My dear Laura,
I have only a few minutes to reply to your amiable letter — we have been inspecting a geological amateur's collection this evening and tomorrow we are off to an excursion to Flamboro' Head. The weather here continues grand: regular Rhenish October weather, that is the acme of fine weather as far as I know, not a cloud on the sky, hot sun, cool bracing air at the same time. Why cannot you and Lafargue come for a week, the place is getting empty, plenty of apartments and accommodation of every sort.
I have not heard from Pumps since the letter I had at Ramsgate dated, I believe, 15th August. I wrote her at once, and since then, on arrival in London, last Fridayb this day week, a postcard, but no reply. Now I am almost certain that she has written to Sarah or her mother Mrs Nicholls who stays in our house during my absence.
19. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 3 September
Would it be too much trouble for you to call there and inform me of the result of your inquiries as I am getting rather anxious and as I am sure there is some misunderstanding abroad by which I am kept without news?
It is now half past nine at night, all windows wide open and yet the fine cool air outside will not come in rapidly enough to enable me to keep my coat on. The beer — oh the beer, it would be worth your while to come here only in order to drink one glass of beer at the Pier refreshment rooms, a nice little café — such splendid beer!
Moore and Beust are off to the 'Parade' (such a thing you know is de rigueur* at every seaside place) to hear the music and hunt backfishes, of which there are excellent specimens here; you know the backfish(1)
lives on dry land. At all events before leaving they wished to be kindly remembered to both of you.b
Yours affectionately
F. Engels
19
ENGELS T O PAUL LAFARGUE c
IN LONDON
Bridlington Quay, Yorkshire, 3 September 1880 7 Burlington Place
My dear Lafargue,
Why Geneva? [5] ' The seat of the Swiss Federal Government is Berne and, besides, any other Swiss town would do as well as Geneva. Unless you have specific objections, of which I may be unaware, the
20. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 9 September
stuff might just as well be deposited in Zurich where someone could undoubtedly be found to take charge of the business. If it suits you, send the things to me here and we will readdress them to someone who will immediately attend to them.
May the soil rest lightly On the egalitarian Egalité.[46]
Yours ever,
F. Engels
20
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE' (1)
IN LONDON
Bridlington Quay, 9 September 1880
My dear Lafargue,
I had to write to you in haste the day before yesterday [5 2] because we were due to leave at 9.30 for an excursion to Flamboro' Head where our two naturalists[3] botanised in the sea. In case I didn't express myself clearly enough, let me summarise.
The more serious aspect of Grant's scheme is that he alone has the right to raise or lower the value of your shares, if not make them virtually worthless. To begin with, he is deducting 12% per annum for the first 4 guides. If the gross profit amounts to 15%, that leaves a net profit, the shareholders' dividend, of only 3%; if 20% it leaves 8%, etc. But with the generous salaries Grant proposes to pay the local directors, can one count on such profits? That seems to me exceedingly doubtful.
Let us suppose, however, that the gross profit amounts to 20% or even 25%. What will Grant do then? He will propose to borrow yet more money so as to launch the remainder of the guides. And he will claim that he can only obtain that money at 15% or 20%. Since he will have a ready-made majority, the vote will go his way. And since you and Jervis won't be able to obtain the money at a cheaper rate, you will get nowhere at all by opposing him. Well then, £3,000 at 12%, £3,000 at 20%, gives an average of 16%—just imagine how a business can function if it is saddled with interest at that rate before so much as a thought can be paid to dividends.
There is nothing to prevent Grant providing you with funds, as soon as there is a further need of them, at still higher interest, the rate of which will depend upon him alone. Since it is he who pockets the interest, at least the greater part thereof, it is in his interest to approach as closely as possible the rate of gross profit generated by the firm. He shares the interest only with the man who advances this money — the net profit he shares with all the other shareholders.
So in fact the value of your PAID UP shares goes down and down and Grant alone has the right to reduce it to nothing. In other words he pays the two of you for your literary property 1. £400; 2. £300 each the moment it suits him to get rid of you; 3. in virtually worthless shares carrying no dividend; total £ 500 each, always provided Grant does not find a way of avoiding payment of the £300 — which wouldn't be too difficult — by accusing you of breach of contract, in which case there would be a fine old lawsuit costing you much more than £ 300, even if you won.
Grant cannot invoke your letter. Even if it contains what he alleges, that letter ceases to be valid after the month during which you were bound by it.
Jervis' interest is not identical with yours. If he has neglected his affairs and is prepared to sacrifice the lot of them for £ 300 a year, that goes to show that they weren't worth the trouble of discussing. Jervis is staying in London. Once launched by Grant on this enterprise, it is in his interest to be launched by him on other enterprises, to act as his UNDERSTRAPPER until such time as he has enough money and enough financial contacts to do without him. You have an entirely different interest. You are going to Paris, you hope to find an assured existence in this enterprise. Ask yourself if such is to be found under the terms proposed by Grant.
It is likewise in the interests of your SOLICITOR, evidently another underling, to pay court to Grant. And this applies to everyone save yourself. All the more reason not to conclude anything in haste.
Jervis has undertaken to find the necessary capital; well and good, but this must obviously be on terms acceptable to you, and not on such as would deliver you over bound hand and foot to a money-lender of the first water.
You would do well to sound Bradshaw. The latter has a twofold interest in coming to an arrangement with you in respect both of this country and of the Continent. If only as a means of putting pressure on Grant. It would be better still to have a choice between the two. And Bradshaw cannot allow himself to go in for the sharp practices that are the other man's stock-in-trade. Unfortunately you can no longer have full confidence in Jervis, once he claims to have tired of the matter and advises you to accept forthwith.
That is, of course, the gloomier aspect of the affair. Grant may possibly have more generous intentions, but once the contract has been signed you will be at his mercy, of that you may be certain.
With a man like Grant I see no means of safeguarding oneself. You could insert a condition that all net profits must be used to pay off the £ 3,000 and that no dividends are distributed so long as the company is paying interest of more than 6% — they would either not accept it or find a way of deleting if at the first shareholders' meeting. And that would merely safeguard the first £ 3,000; as regards subsequent bor-rowings it would do nothing of the kind; it would be nonsensical to repay with one hand and borrow with the other.
My advice is try to manage without Grant and, if you can't, at least try to make him fear that you can do without him, so that he robs you a little less UNMERCIFULLY than he intended. He will rob you anyhow.
The weather here continues magnificent, sunshine all the time, bracing air, north-east breeze, sea-bathing already somewhat bracing, but this evening I fear I shall have to wear an overcoat as at Ramsgate. The visitors are quite different from those at Ramsgate. Here we have the SHOPKEEPER, the small manufacturer, the TRADESMAN from Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, etc., an atmosphere decidedly more provincial yet at the same time more solid than at Ramsgate; no 'ARRYS. What strikes you most is the fact that all the young girls are backfish(2)
between 14 and 17 years — what you call the ugly age, although there are some very pretty ones here. Of young girls fashioned to per-fection there are none or virtually none. No sooner have they ceased to be backfish than they're put into long skirts and, so it would seem, get married. All the women of 18 and over that one sees are accompanied by their husbands and even by children. Nor did poor Beust, who casts tender glances at the backfish, succeed in initiating any amorous exchanges, however brief. Papa and mama, like the Prus-sians of Frederick II, are 'constantly on sentry go'.
My best wishes to Laura. The two herbalists[3] send their compliments. The thing has been sent to Beust's father(3) in Zurich. The newspapers will be returned to you. I don't know Marx's whereabouts, for I have not had word from him.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
21. Marx to Nikolai Danielson. 12 September[5 3][5 4]
My dear Sir,
I need not tell you that I should feel only too happy to do anything you consider useful,[55] but a short statement of the circumstances in which I find myself at this moment will convince you that I am at present unfit for theoretical labour. Having been sent here by the medical men in order to 'do nothing' and to restore my nervous system by the far niente\c an illness of my wife, under which she suffered long time since, has suddenly been aggravated to a degree which menaces to tend to a. fatal termination. Whatever little time I may snatch for work, is necessarily limited to things which I must get rid of.
However, the most important part for the public in general is that which you have already performed — the drawing up of the statistical tables and the interpretation of the facts which they imply. It would be a pity if you delayed the publication which I expect myself with the greatest impatience.[56]
Whatever you may have found useful in my letters for that purpose, you may freely dispose of. Only I fear it is not much, since I sent you only a few fragmentary scraps.
The present crisis was the greatest England has passed through with regard to duration, extent and intensiveness,[57] but despite the failures of some Scotch and English provincial banks — the crowning of the past English great periodical crises, I mean the financial crash in London, shone by its absence. This most extraordinary incident — the absence of the monetary panic properly so called, was due to a con-catenation of circumstances the analysis of which would lead me too far at present. One of the most decisive circumstances was, however, this: The heavy bullion drain of 1879 was to a great extent met by the cooperation of the Banque de France and the Imperial Bank of Germany. On the other hand, the sudden revival in the United States — since the spring of 1879 — reacted on England like a deus ex machina.*
As to the agricultural crisis, it will gather strength, develop itself, and, by the bye, come to a head, carrying with it quite a revolution in the relations of landed property,— quite independent of the cycles of the commercial-industrial crises. Even such optimists as Mr Caird have commenced 'to smell a rat'. Most characteristic of English blockheadedness is this: since two years there have been published letters of farmers — in The Times as well as in agricultural papers — giving the items of their expenses in cultivating their farms, comparing them with their returns at present prices, and winding up with a positive deficit. Would you believe that not one of the specialists — expatiating upon these accounts — has thought of considering how these accounts would stand if the item of rent was struck out in many cases or reduced 'most feelingly' in many other cases? But this is a delicate point which must not be touched. The farmers themselves, though become unbelievers in the nostrums proposed by their landlords or the 'plumitifs'(1) of the latter, dare not yet assume attitudes of bold vi-
22. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 12 September
rility, considering that they, on their part, are denounced by the rus-tic 'labouring class'. A nice pickle it is altogether.
I hope there will be no general war in Europe. Though, ultimately, it could not check, but would rather intensify, the social, I mean thereby the economical, development, it would certainly produce a useless exhaustion of forces for some longer or shorter interval.
Please to send your letters as before to my London address, from where I shall always receive them even in case of momentary absence.
Yours most sincerely
A. Williams»
22
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE (1)
IN LONDON
Bridlington Quay, 12th September 1880
My dear Lafargue,
How can I advise you on business if you give me all the information afterwards? If you had sent me the draft articles[5] b before, I should have known better what to say. Do not say that you had not got it; it was your business to have had it as soon as printed. Mais on dirait que vous brûlez de vous faire voler}
You say the articles forbid to borrow at more than 10%. Whoever told you that, reckoned upon your credulity. Article 74 says distinctly that the directors can raise money upon such terms and conditions in all respects as they think fit. Now I do not know and cannot be expected to know whether the acts of parliament forbid limited companies to raise money at more than 10%. I doubt it. But if it be the fact, you have before your eyes the proof that that is no use whatever. Have you not written to me that Grant wanted to raise £3,000 — at 10% and a bonus of 20% at the end of five years? 20% divided by 5 is 4, and 10 + 4 are 14; thus, you pay really 14% for your money. Why do you not speak of that when people want to make you believe that Grant cannot get more than 10% out of your company in interest?
Then you say, Jervis and Mason had pris des garanties contre Grant, en ce que rien de nouveau pouvait être décidé sans qu'on ait au moins le vote des [4]/s des actionnaires, et que Grant n'avait que 55% et que par conséquent il ne pouvait rien faire sans votre consen-tement.
Décidément on se moque de vous." In the whole agreement not a word about 4/[5] of the shareholders. All resolutions by simple majori-ties. It may be in the acts of parliament that [4]/5 are required to alter the original deed of association. But that is not the question. I have shown you the way how Grant by his system of loans at 10% and any bonus he likes, can suck all the profits out of the company. And Article 74 gives him the right to do so, without even consulting anybody but his directors who, whatever they may be, are sure to be his puppets.
Secondly. All the capital being subscribed you have
1) 5,000 votes for original capital—£5,000.-2) 3,000 votes for preference shares 3,000 at £ 5 each (Art. 49). 8,000 votes in all. Out of these you, Jervis and Mason have together 2,250 votes, that is to say not 45% against 55%, but 28% against 72%. Still more than '/s, but not very far off. Let a few shares be sold by one of you, and the power to stop even alterations of deed of association is lost by you. You will be told that it is not intended to issue all the preference shares. But how long that remains so, will depend upon Grant.
There is another article which may affect you and alter the case. Art. 21 says that for calls not yet made, but paid up by the share-holder voluntarily, interest up to 10% shall be paid. I should presume that this applies to your paid up shares, only, if it was so, Jervis and Mason would have pointed it out to you; at least I should think so. If that be the case and you can secure 10% on the greater part of your shares that would be so much in your favour. See whether it is so or not.
Upon the whole I think, after your last letter, a little more favour-ably of the business. If the money raised at such ruinous interest can be limited to the first £ 3,000.- and these repaid after the 5 years or before, the thing may work well. But it strikes me that it will require very large profits indeed to pay all these lavish expenses. £50.- to each director, £ 100.- to the Chairman, £? to the Manager, £300.- to the directors in London and Paris and so forth. All that with a working capital of £ 3,000.-, less than three times the salaries named above! And 14% interest besides.
I cannot write to you about Jervis as you say you read my letters to him and Mason. Else I should have something to say to that. Anyhow, the honesty of a financier is different from that of some people, be it ever so honest in its own way.
I must conclude; dinner is going to be laid. Si vous ne voyez pas d'autre voie, naturellement vous vous êtes trop avancé pour reculer tout seul. Mais réfléchissez bien, et rassurez-vous sur les points indi-qués ci-dessus.
Je n'ai que l'argent absolument nécessaire pour mon voyage et même peut-être pas cela. Mon CHEQUE-BOOK est à Londres où je serai de retour samedi soir[30]; jusque là, je ne pourrai rien faire.
Si vous pouvez retarder l'affaire G. jusqu'à mon arrivée, on pour-rait peut-être avoir plus de renseignements.
Bien des choses à Laura de la part de nous tous.
Bien à vous
F. E.
Je rapporterai les articles d'association à moins que vous n'en avez un besoin immédiat."
23. Engels to Marx. 13 September
23
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Bridlington Quay, 13 September 1880 7 Burlington Place
Dear Moor,
Have received the enclosed from Liebknecht. I am writing to tell him that, provided he hears nothing to the contrary within the next few days, we shall be back in London again from next Sunday, 19 September,[30] and shall be expecting them (him and Bebel).[60] So if you should be prevented in any way, kindly let me know.
I haven't had an answer to a postcard sent from here to your address in Ramsgate [38] on 29 August; no doubt it didn't arrive. Yesterday I heard from Lafargue, who said you would be returning to London today.
We shall be returning at the end of this week; wet weather since the day before yesterday, before which the weather was splendid.
I hope your wife is better. Warmest regards to all, likewise from Moore and Beust.
Your
F. E.
24. Marx to Ferdinand Fleckles. 29 September
My Dear Friend,
My best thanks for your letter.[6] ' Ladies have their own ideas about things. Which is why my wifea didn't want to reply on this side of the form, nor indeed, in accordance with any formula, but after her own fashion. Not having read her letter, I don't know whether her answer is appropriate; however, women will have their way.b
Eleanor sends her kind regards.
Tout à vous,c
Karl Marx
25. Engels to Eugen Oswald and an Unknown Correspondent. 5 October
Dear Oswald,
Many thanks for the recommendations for Beust,d which have all been attended to. As regards Kaulitz, I got an identical letter — my reply on the reverse. As regards Br.,(1) we are unlikely to quarrel.
Ever yours
F. Engels
[On the reverse of the letter]
* (Copy) Confid.
Sir,
Mr Kaulitz was introduced to me on his arrival in England last spring, by a letter from an old friend in Germany. The letter stated that Mr Kaulitz was of a very good family, his father being one of the first notaries in Brunswick (a position of much importance and great trust in Germany), and recommended him warmly to me. From what I have seen of him since, he appears to be a man of very great business abilities and to have succeeded very well, so far, in the scholastic line; but on this point no doubt the professional gentleman to whom Mr K. may have referred you, will be able to give you more satisfactory information.
I am etc.
F. E.*
26. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 12 October
Dear Old Man,
I've heard from Liebknecht that you're still short of cash but that they can't help you just now. By a lucky chance I was on the point of putting a five pound note on one side for you and have lost no time in changing it into a money order for 126 frs. I trust it reaches you safely and soon and will tide you over your initial difficulties until such time as the Leipzigers can do something for you. And so they damned well ought. You're certainly as much a victim of the Exceptional Law ' [6] as the agitators in Germany who have been deprived of their livelihood.
Liebknecht was here [60] and promised that the Zurich papera would adopt a different attitude in keeping with the party's former attitude. If that is done, it's all we ask.
Adieu and keep your pecker up.
Your old friend
F. Engels
rr time 27
27. Engels to Harry Kaulitz. 28 October
I return herewith Mr Burleigh's letter. As to the matter of Mr Lafargue, you concede the chief point, namely that you have given his name as a reference without his permission. The rest is beside the point.
With regard to Beust,a I do not propose to go into the question of when you offered to give the said lessons elsewhere. This much is certain: that after our return from Bridlington Quay [30] you again offered to give lessons to Beust, that you promised, in the presence of myself and Schorlemmer, to set about the thing in the manner stipulated, that you did the opposite of what you had promised, and that Beust, far from attacking his 'very dear friend Kaulitz' behind his back, told him in Trafalgar Square exactly what he thought of him, adding quite rightly that all three of us had been convinced from the outset that you wouldn't do a single thing you had promised. I should have written you off there and then had it not been for the fact that I avoid making private matters a cause for breaking with people with whom I have been in any way connected politically.
Concerning the tittle-tattle in the Central News, I will not labour the point as to whether it was you or Most who disseminated it, since I am not permitted to divulge my sources, and since, on the other hand, I lay no store at all by the agent's letter.
If one is compelled to make a decision such as mine in regard to yourself, one bases it not on this or that particular indiscretion, but rather on the other's whole mode of behaviour, observed over a considerable period. And in any case your almost daily intercourse with Most and Co., which you freely admit, is quite enough to supply, in place of the fact you contest, another that is no less convincing.
Yours very truly
28. Marx to John Swinton. 4 November
IN NEW YORK
London, 4 November 1880 41 Maitland Park Road, N.W.
My dear Sir,
I have sent you today a copy of the French edition of the Capital. [6 3] I have at the same time to thank you for your friendly article in The Sun. [4 3]
Apart Mr Gladstone's 'sensational' failures abroad [6 4] — political interest centres here at present on the Irish 'Land Question'. And why? Mainly because it is the harbinger of the English 'Land Question[1].
Not only that the great landlords of England are also the largest landholders of Ireland, but having once broken down in what is ironically called the 'Sister'-island, the English landed system will no longer be tenable at home. There are arrayed against it the British farmers, wincing under high rents, and — thanks to the American competition — low prices; the British agricultural labourers, at last impatient of their traditional position of ill-used beasts of burden, and — that British party which styles itself 'Radical'. The latter consists of two sets of men; first the ideologues of the party, eager to overthrow the political power of the aristocracy by mining its material basis, the semi-feudal landed property. But behind these principle-spouters, and hunting them on, lurks another set of men — sharp, close-fisted, calculating capitalists, fully aware that the abolition of the old land laws, in the way proposed by the ideologues, cannot but convert land into a commercial article that must ultimately concentrate in the hands of capital.
On the other side, considered as a national entity, John Bull has ugly misgivings lest the aristocratic English landed garrison in Ireland once gone — England's political sway over Ireland will go too!
Liebknecht has to enter prison for 6 months.— The Anti-Socialists' Law ' [6] having failed to overthrow or even to weaken the German Social-Democratic organisation, Bismarck clings the more desperately to his panacea, and fancies that it must work, if only applied on a larger scale. Hence he has extended the state of siege[65] to Hamburg, Al-tana, and 3 other Northern towns. Under these circumstances the German friends have written me a letter of which one passage runs thus:
'The Socialist Law, though it could not break and never will break our organisation, does impose pecuniary sacrifices almost impossible to bear. To support the fami-lies ruined by the police, to keep alive the few papers left to us, to keep up the necessary communications by secret messengers, to fight the battle on the whole line — all this requires money. We are nearly exhausted and forced to appeal to our friends and sym-pathisers in other countries.'
So far this extract. Now, we, here at London, Paris, etc., will do our best. At the same time, I believe that a man of your influence might organise a subscription in the United States. Even if the monetary result were not important, denunciations of Bismarck's new coup d'état in public meetings held by you, reported in the American press, reproduced on the other side of the Atlantic — would sorely hit the Pomeranian hobereaua
and be welcomed by all the socialists of Europe. More information you might get from Mr Sorge (Hoboken). Any money forthcoming to be sent over to Mr Otto Freytag, Landtagsabgeordneter,h Amtmannshof, Leipzig- His address ought of course not to be made public; otherwise the German police would simply confiscate.
À propos. My youngest daughter" — who was not with us at Ramsgate — just tells me that she has cut my portrait from the copy of the Capital I sent you, on the pretext that it was a mere caricature. Well, I shall make up for it by a photogram to be taken on the first fine day.
Mrs Marx and the whole family send you their best wishes.
Yours most sincerely,
Karl Marx
Junker- b deputy to the Provincial Diet-C Eleanor Marx
29. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 5 November[6 3]
IN HOBOKEN
[London,] 5 November 1880 41 Maitland Park Road, N.W.
Dear Sorge,
You must excuse my long silence on the grounds 1. of excessive pressure of work, 2. of my wife's exceedingly grave illness which has now lasted for something over a year.
You have yourself seen what JOHN Most has blossomed out into and, on the other hand, how wretchedly the so-called party organ, the Zurich Sozialdemokrat (not to mention the Jahrbuch(1) of that place) —duceh Dr Höchberg, has been run. As a result Engels and I have been constantly engaged in acrimonious exchanges with the Leipzigers in the course of which many a hard word has been said.0
But we have eschewed any kind of public intervention. It does not befit those who are peacefully — comparativement parlantd — ensconced abroad to contribute to the gratification of government and bour-geosie by doing anything to aggravate the position of those who are operating in the homeland under the most difficult circumstances and at considerable personal sacrifice. Liebknecht was here a few weeks ago [6 0] and promised 'improvement' in every respect. The party organisation has been revived, something that could only be done by secret means, i. e. in so far as 'secret' denotes secret from the police.
It was, believe it or not, in a Russian socialist paperc that I first discovered what a blackguard Most is. He has never dared print in German what is to be read here in the Russian VERNACULAR. This isn't just an attack on individual persons but a dragging-through-the-mire of the entire German workers' movement. At the same time his utter incomprehension of the doctrine in which he used to traffic is grotesquely in evidence. It's idle chatter, so silly, so illogical, so abysmal that it finally dissolves into the inane, namely into Johannes Most's unbounded personal vani-ty.a Having failed, for all his caterwauling, to achieve anything in Germany — save, perhaps, among certain hoodlums in Berlin — he has allied himself with the Parisian successors of the Bakuninists, the group which publishes the Révolution Sociale (its circulation = 210 EXACTLY, but possesses allies in the shape of Pyat's Commune. Pyat, that cowardly, melodramatic farceur — in whose Commune I figure as Bismarck's right-hand man — has a grudge against me for having always treated him with the utmost contempt and frustrated all his attempts to use the International for his sensation-mongering). At all events there's one good thing Most has done, namely to bring together in one group all the brawlers — Andreas Scheu, Hasselmann, etc., etc.
In view of Bismarck's new emergency decrees [65] and the persecution of our party members, it is absolutely essential that there should be a whip-round for the party. Yesterday I wrote and said as much to John Swintonh (for a well-disposed bourgeois is best suited to this job), at the same time telling him that he should refer to you for further information about conditions in Germany.
Apart from the inanities mentioned on the previous page — and during our long years of exile how many of the same have we not seen explode like squibs and then fizzle out again! — things in general are going splendidly (I mean the course of events in Europe as a whole), as they are within the confines of the genuinely revolutionary party on the Continent.
You will probably have noticed that the Egalité, in particular, (thanks en première instancer to Guesde's having come over to us and to the efforts of my son-in-law, Lafargue) has become the first 'French' workers' paper in the true sense of the term. Even Malon — albeit with the inconsistencies inseparable from his eclectic nature — has felt bound, in his Revue socialiste, (we used to be enemies, he being one of the original co-founders of the Alliance [6 7] ) to espouse le socialisme moderne scientifique,A i. e. the German variety. I drew up a 'questionneur'[sic]c for him which was first published in the Revue socialiste and then reprinted in quantity for distribution throughout France. Shortly afterwards Guesde came to London to collaborate with us (MYSELF, Engels and Lafargue) in drafting an electoral programme[68] for the use of the workers in the forthcoming general elections. With the exception of some foolishnesses such as minimum wages fixed by law, etc., which despite our protests Guesde thought fit to dole out to the French workers (I told him that if the French proletariat was so puerile as to require these sops so is IT NOT WORTH WHILE DRAWING UP ANY PROGRAMME WHATEVER), the economic section of this very short document consists (apart from some introductory words which define the communist aim in a few lines) solely of demands that have, in fact, arisen spontaneously out of the workers' movement itself. To bring the French workers down to earth out of their verbal cloud-cuckoo land was a tremendous step forward, and therefore aroused much resentment among all those French intellectual frauds who make a living as 'cloud-assemblers'. The programme was first adopted, after most vigorous opposition on the part of the anarchists, in the Région cen-trale— i. e. Paris and all its purlieus, and later in many other working-class areas. The simultaneous formation of opposing workers' groups — which (sauf les anarchistes,a not made up of genuine workers, but of déclassé people with a few misguided workers for their rank-and-file) nevertheless adopted most of the 'practical' demands in the programme — as also the ventilation of the most diverse points of view in relation to other matters, is to my mind proof that this is the first real workers' movement in France. Hitherto there have been nothing but sects there which, of course, received their mot d'ordreb from their founders, while the bulk of the proletariat followed the radical or pseudo-radical bourgeois and fought for them when the day came, only to be slaughtered, deported, etc., on the morrow by the very laddies they had placed at the helm.
The Emancipation, which first came out a few days ago at Lyons, will be the organ of the 'parti ouvrier'c— a party that has arisen on the basis of German socialism.
Meanwhile we have also had — and still have — our pioneers in the very camp of the enemy — i.e. in the radical camp. Theisz has taken on the workers' question in the Intransigeant, Rochefort's organ; after the defeat of the 'Commune' he, like all 'thinking' French socialists, came to London as a Proudhonist and, while there, changed completely as a result of personal intercourse with myself and of a conscientious study of Capital. My son-in-law,d for his part, gave up his teaching post at King's College,[69] went back to Paris (his family, I'm glad to say, is remaining here for the time being), where he became one of the most influential editors of Justice, owned by Clemenceau, the leader of the extreme left. He has laboured to such good purpose that Clemenceau who, only last April, publicly entered the arena as the opponent of socialism and the advocate of the American-democratic-republican viewpoint, recently made an anti-Gambetta speech(2) at Marseilles, in which, to judge by its general tenor no less than its references to the most essential points in the minimum programme, he came over to our side. Whether he sticks to what he promised doesn't really matter. At all events, he has introduced an element of ours into the radical party whose organs, comically enough, now admire as SOMETHING WONDERFUL, on Clemenceau's lips, what had been ignored or sneered at by them when merely a catchword emanating from the 'parti ouvrier'.
I need hardly tell you — for you know what French chauvinism is like — that the secret strings whereby the LEADERS — from Guesde-Malon to Clemenceau — have been set in motion, must remain entre nous. Il n'en faut pas parler. Quand on veut agir pour Messieurs les Français, il faut le faire anonymement, pour ne pas choquer le sen-timent 'national'.b * As it is, the Anarchists denounce our co-operators already as Prussian agents, under the dictatorship of the 'notorious' Prussian agent * — Karl Marx.
In Russia — where Capital is more widely read and acclaimed than anywhere else — our success is even greater. On the one hand, we have the critics (mostly young university professors, some of them personal friends of mine,d SOME also littérateurs), on the other, the terrorist Central Committee,[7] ° whose recent programme, clandestinely printed and published in St Petersburg, ' ' aroused considerable ire among the anarchist Russians in Switzerland, who bring out The Black Redistribution[6] (to translate literally from the Russian) in Geneva. Unlike the terrorists, who risk life and limb, these men — most of whom (but not all) left Russia of their own accord—constitute the so-called Propaganda Party. (In order to disseminate propaganda in Russia— they remove to Geneva}. What a quid pro quoi) These gentry are all of them opposed to politico-revolutionary action. Russia is to leap head-over-heels into the anarchist-communist-atheist millennium! Meanwhile they pave the way for that leap by tedious doctrinari-anism of which the self-styled principes courent la rue depuis le feu Bakou-nine. (3)
Well, that's enough for now. Let us [hear] from you soon. Warmest regards from my wife.
Totus tuus,b
Karl Marx
I should be most grateful if you could unearth for me some sound stuff (meaty) on economic conditions in California, OF COURSE AT MY EXPENSE. California is of great moment to me because in no other place has revolution by capitalist centralisation been effected with such effrontery at such great speed.
30. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 5 November
IM HASTE
Dear Sorge,
I had just sent off a longish letter to youc when, after the event — postfestum but not before the post office closed — another point occurred to me in connection with that poor devil Borkheim. Last summer, when I went from Ramsgate [38] to see him in Hastings, where I found him ill in bed, he requested me to ask you to dun a certain Francis Murhard (215 Washington Street, Hoboken). This man owes our friend Borkheim some money — £10 if I remember aright — which he lent Murhard for the journey to America and in respect of which he possesses a promissory note.
Salut.
Your
K.M.
31. Marx to Ferdinand Fleckles. 12 November
I.N HASTE
Dear Friend,
Herewith a card of introduction to my son-in-law Longuet who is to introduce you to Rochefort.
No doubt you will by now have received the letter my wife eventually sent off; like all female invalids, she always despairs of the doctors who happen to be attending her.
With kindest regards,
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
[Address on the envelope in Marx's hand]
Dr. F. Fleckles, Carlsbad (Austria)
32. Marx to Achille Loria. 13 November[7 2]
IN MANTUA
London, 13 November 1880 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Mr Loria,
Domestic upsets resulting from my wife's very dangerous illness have delayed my reply to your letter of 14 September.[73] I regret that my lack of personal means does not allow me to provide for your stay in London, the more so since I have the highest opinion of your talent, your learning and your scientific future. 74
Being of a somewhat solitary disposition and eschewing as I do all contact with the English press, I have very little influence and few connections to place at your disposal. I know from experience that Italian competition, as regards both contributions to the press and private lessons, is OVERDONE in London, as in every other sphere of the struggle for existence.
Nevertheless, on the re-opening of Parliament — until which time everyone, i. e. THE UPPER TEN THOUSANDS, deserts the metropolis — I shall consult SOME WELL-MEANING AND INFLUENTIAL MEN. In the meantime, perhaps you would be so kind as to let me know whether you speak French and a modicum of English.
Yours very faithfully,
Karl Marx
1927 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Translated from the French Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 34, Moscow, 1964
33. Marx to Henry Mayers Hyndman. 8 December[75]
My dear Sir,
Mrs Marx, like most sickly people whose illness has assumed a chronic character, becomes sometimes suddenly unable to leave her bedroom and then fit again for social intercourse. Believing she could within a few days pay a visit to Mrs Hyndman, she did not write to her at once, but as we are this week inundated with visitors from the Continent, she begs me to write you that she will give herself the pleasure to call upon Mrs Hyndman next week.
I welcome the prospect of the journal you speak of. If you say that you do not share the views of my party for England I can only reply that that party considers an English revolution not necessary, but — according to historic precedents—possible. If the unavoidable evolution turn into a revolution, it would not only be the fault of the ruling classes, but also of the working class. Every pacific concession of the former has been wrung from them by 'pressure from without[1]. Their action kept pace with that pressure and if the latter has more and more weakened, it is only because the English working class know not how to wield their power and use their liberties, both of which they possess legally.
In Germany the working class were fully aware from the beginning of their movement that you cannot get rid of a military despotism but by a Revolution. At the same time they understood that such a Revolution, even if at first successful, would finally turn against them without previous organisation, acquirement of knowledge, propaganda, and [word illegible]. Hence they moved within strictly legal bounds. The illegality was all on the side of government, which declared them en dehors la loi.(1) Their crimes were not deeds, but opinions unpleasant to their rulers. Fortunately, the same government — the working class having been pushed to the background with the help of the bourgeoisie — becomes now more and more unbearable to the latter, whom it hits on their most tender point — the pocket. This state of things cannot last long.
Please to present my compliments to Mrs Hyndman.
Yours very truly,
Karl Marx
34. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 24 December
Dear Old Man,
This is to advise you in all haste that I have taken out a money order for you for five pounds sterling = 126 frs, which I trust you will receive.
When Liebknecht was here [6] ° I hauled him over the coals for having failed so much as to consider you when distributing the relief fund. I told him you were just as much, if not more, a victim of the Anti-Socialist Law ' [6] as many of the Berliners, amongst whom there are some notorious blackguards. Now he has written to say: Becker will be cared for. So make sure this is done and, if not and supposing it embarrasses you to dun them, drop me a line and I'll see to it for you.
Better luck in the New Year.
Your old friend,
F. Engels
35. Marx to Carl Hirsch. 29 December
35
MARX TO CARL HIRSCH
IN LONDON
[London,] 29 December 1880
Dear Hirsch,
You would oblige me by coming here next Friday evening (7 o'clock) to dine with us and to celebrate the New Year.
Salut.
K.M.
1881
36
Endnotes
[15] The National Liberals (die Nationalliberale Partei) was the party of the German, mostly Prussian, bourgeoisie, which emerged in the autumn of 1866 as a result of the split in the Party of Progress (see Note 256). The policy of National Liberals showed that a considerable section of the liberal bourgeoisie renounced claims to broader political rights and capitulated before Bismarck's Junker government. After the unification of Germany, the National Liberal Party acquired its final shape as a party of the big bourgeoisie, notably the industrial tycoons.— 11
[9] At the Reichstag elections on 30 July 1878, shortly before the promulgation of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 16), the Social-Democrats won 437,158 votes.— 8
[12] The real date of the letter, erroneously indicated by Bebel as 27 March 1880 in his letter to Engels of 22 September 1880, has been ascertained by the event mentioned in it, the Hamburg Reichstag elections on 27 April. In the second Russian edition of Marx's and Engels' Works and in Werke, the letter is dated early May 1880.— 10
[13] In March-May 1880, the Reichstag debated the extension of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 16) until 1886. At the third reading of the Bill on 4 May, an ultra-'revolutionary' speech was made by the Social-Democratic deputy and former Lassallean Wilhelm Hasselmann, who sided with the Russian terrorists and the French anarchists and openly opposed the Social-Democrats' line. Der Sozialdemokrat (No. 20, 16 May 1880) declared that Hasselmann had placed himself outside the party. By Bebel's 'speech on the persecutions', Engels means the latter's speech in the Reichstag on 6 March, which was carried, in a slightly abridged form, by Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 11, 14 March 1880, under the heading 'Polizei-Orgien in Berlin unter dem Belagerungszustand'.— 10
[14] Engels is referring to the victory of the Social-Democratic candidate Georg Wilhelm Hartmann at the Reichstag elections in Hamburg on 27 April 1880. He obtained 13,155 votes out of the 23,231 cast.— 11
[17] The British general elections, held between late March and mid-April 1880, produced a victory for the Liberals. They obtained 349 seats in the new Parliament as against 243 received by the Conservatives. Leadership of the Cabinet was assumed by Gladstone, who opposed the policy of rapprochement with Germany.— 11
[19] This letter was published in English for the First time in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. I: 1868-1886, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1959.—12, 27, 351
[20] A reference to the introduction to the French edition of Engels' work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which appeared in Paris in 1880 in Paul Lafargue's translation under the title Socialisme utopique et socialisme scientifique. Engels produced the pamphlet at Lafargue's request, having rewritten three chapters of Anti-Diihring (Chapter I of the Introduction and chapters I and II of Part III) to form a popular work in its own right. It was first printed by the French socialist magazine La Revue socialiste, Nos. 3, 4 and 5, 1880, and then published, also in 1880, as a pamphlet. The French socialist Benoît Malon embarked on an introduction to it, but his effort was deemed unacceptable, and the introduction as it appeared was written by Marx, who had first consulted Engels (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 335-39). In the pamphlet, the introduction carried the signature of Lafargue, whom Marx requested to 'polish the phrases, leaving the gist intact' (see this volume, p. 16).— 12, 332,
[22] On the reasons for Marx's and Engels' refusal in January 1861 to collaborate with Lassalle in the publication of a newspaper, see present edition, Vol. 41, pp. 252, 261 and 281-82.—15
[23] Marx wrote this on the last page of his introduction to the French edition of Engels' pamphlet (see Note 20).—15
[24] Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters on 'Capital', New Park Publications, London, 1983.—16,
[25] In a letter of 19 June 1880, the Dutch socialist Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis requested Marx to look through a popular outline of Volume One of Capital he had written in Dutch. Nieuwenhuis' work, entitled Karl Marx. Kapilaal en Arbeid, appeared in The Hague in 1881.— 16
[29] The reference is to Minna Gorbunova's letter to Engels written in the first half of July 1880. She said she wanted to use in Russia the already available experience, and asked Engels to recommend her books on vocational training in England.— 17
[31] The reference is to the World Exhibition of 1878 in Paris.— 17
[32] Rue de Richelieu in Paris is the address of Bibliothèque nationale.—17
[33] The London-based book trading firm of Philip Stephen King specialised in the sale of government and parliamentary publications, statistical material, etc. Marx used its services between 1867 and 1882. He probably needed the book ordered in this letter for his work on Volume Two of Capital.—19, 367
[34] This letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955.—-20
[35] In her letter to Engels of 25 July 1880, Minna Gorbunova mentioned the Acts of Parliament on primary education of 1870, 1873 and 1876, as well as the Report of the Committee of the Council on Education 1878-1879.— 20
[36] In her letter of 25 July 1880, Gorbunova wrote that she was shortly to return to Moscow and gave Engels her address: Toporov's House, Bolshaya Molchanovka St., Moscow.— 20
[340] Ribbonmen—participants in the peasant movement that arose in Northern Ireland in the late 18th century. They were united in secret groups, whose emblem was a strip of green cloth. Whiteboys—participants in the Irish peasant movement, which in the 1760s grew into a large-scale rebellion against the rule of English landlords. To make themselves unrecognisable, these men, who usually acted at night, painted their faces black and wore white shirts. In the 19th century, many of their societies merged with those of the Ribbonmen, but some continued to operate under their old name up to the end of the century. Captain Rock—the name of the members of the various secret peasant societies that emerged and operated in Ireland between the second half of the 18th and the mid-19th century. Captain Moonlight—the usual signature under warnings sent by the Ribbonmen's secret society to landlords.— 285
[42] The Editors are not in possession of John Swinton's letter to which Marx is replying.—22
[44] Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx, F. Engels, V.I.Lenin, The Communist View on Morality, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1974.—23
[45] On 18 March 1876, the German socialist Ferdinand Lingenau, who had emigrated to the United States, bequeathed about S 7,000, half of his fortune, to the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. He appointed August Bebcl, Johann Philipp Becker, Wilhelm Bracke, August Geib, Wilhelm Liebknecht and Karl Marx his executors. After Lingenau's death on 4 August 1877 in St Louis (Missouri) they tried to have the money bequeathed to the party transferred to its funds, and gave Sorge power of attorney. Sorge wrote to Marx on 13 August 1880 that he would have to drop the matter if he did not get hold of some money to continue with it. Bismarck ultimately managed to prevent Lingenau's legacy being credited to the Social-Democratic Party's funds.—24, 99
[47] The reference is to the piece on Marx's activities and works written by Hazeltine, a staff member on The Sun.— 24
[48] Marx's ironic reference to Douai's article in the New Yorker Volkszeitung sent to Engels by Sorge on 13 August 1880.— 25
[52] The Editors are not in possession of Engels' letter to Paul Lafargue of 7 September 1880.—27
[53] Part of this letter was quoted by Nikolai Danielson in the preface to the first Russian edition of Volume Two of Capital, St Petersburg, 1885.— 30
[54] The address on the envelope containing this letter was written in Eleanor Marx's hand: N. Danielson. Société du Crédit mutuel, Pont de Kazan, maison Lessnikoff, St Petersburg, Russia.— 30
[55] On 21 August (2 September) 1880, Danielson requested Marx to write an article on Russia's post-reform economy for a Russian magazine.— 30
[56] This refers to the article 'OnepKn Haiuero nope<J>opMeHHaro o6ujecTBenHaro xo3HHCTBa' ('Sketches of Our Post-Reform Social Economy') Danielson published in the Slovo in October 1880 under the pen-name Nikolai —on.— 31, 61
[57] A reference to the world economic crisis which began in 1873 and particularly affected the United States and Germany. In the late 1870s, it spread to Britain.— 31
[64] Marx is probably referring to the outcome of the second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-80. The staunch resistence of the Afghans forced Britain to abandon its plans to conquer and partition the country, and made it reach a compromise with Khan Abdur Rahman. The period also witnessed an aggravation of the situation in British-annexed Transvaal, where a Boer uprising flared up in mid-December 1880.—
[67] The Alliance of Socialist Democracy was founded by Mikhail Bakunin in Geneva in October 1868 as an international anarchist organisation. In 1869 the Alliance approached the General Council of the International Working Men's Association with a request to be admitted to the International. The General Council agreed to admit individual sections of the Alliance provided the latter dissolved as an independent organisation. On entering the International, Bakunin did not actually comply with this decision and incorporated the Alliance into it under the guise of a section (called 'the Alliance of Socialist Democracy. Central Section'). Marx, Engels and the General Council fought the Alliance, exposing it as a sect hostile to the working-class movement (for details, see present edition, Vol. 23). The Hague Congress of the International (1872) dealt a severe blow at the anarchists and expelled the Alliance's leaders Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume from the International.—43, 181, 190, 333, 341, 370, 408
[68] A reference to the Programme électoral des travailleurs socialistes, the preamble to which was dictated by Marx to Jules Guesde (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 340). The theoretical part was followed by a minimum programme in-corporating an economic and a political section. The election programme was widely discussed at workers' meetings and adopted as the official programme of the French Workers' Party (see Note 195) at its national congress in Le Havre in November 1880.—43, 148, 342, 386, 447, 474
[69] From 1874, Charles Longuet taught French at King's College, and Jenny Longuet, German at the Clement Dun school.— 45, 61
[72] 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.—48, 107,
[73] In a letter of 14 September 1880 from Mantua, Achille Loria asked Marx to find him a job as a writer or journalist in London, and inquired whether Marx would take him on as secretary.— 48
[75] The Editors are not in possession of the original of this letter, which is reprinted from Hyndman's book The Record of an Adventurous L.ife.— 49
[3] Bimetallism, the practice of using both gold and silver as a monetary standard by specifying that both constitute legal tender at a fixed ratio to each other. This practice existed in a number of countries in the 18th and 19th centuries but did not meet the needs of developed commodity economy and went against the very nature of money as the only commodity which was to be a universal equivalent. Liebknecht quoted from this letter by Engels in his speech in the Saxon Landtag on 16 January 1880, opposing a return to bimetallism. Engels analysed the issue of bimetallism in some detail also in his letter to Eduard Bernstein of 10 May 1882 (see this volume, pp. 256-58).—3, 256
[2] The reference is to two trade unionists, Alexander Macdonald and Thomas Burt, who were elected to the House of Commons in 1874.— 3
[1] On 18 August 1879, in Ramsgate, Marx's daughter Jenny Longuet gave birth to a son, Edgar.— 3
[5] The originals of this letter and that of 13 December 1879 (present edition, Vol. 45, p. 427) are kept in the family archive of Lord Walstone, who presented photocopies of them to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in 1968. The addressee was Lord Walstone's father, the English archaeologist Charles Walstone, who held his father's surname, Waldstein, at the time.— 5
[4] A reference to Bismarck's visit to Austria in September 1879 and the Austro-German alliance concluded in Vienna on 7 October of that year. Art. 1 of the treaty stipulated that, should one of the contracting parties be attacked by Russia, the other was obliged to come to its aid. Art. 2 stated that, should one of the signa-tories be attacked by any other country, the other was to maintain benevolent neutrality. Should the aggressor have Russian support, Art. 1 was to apply. Concluded for a term of five years and later repeatedly extended, this treaty was the first in a series of agreements that ultimately led to the establishment of a military bloc headed by Germany and to a division of the European countries into two hostile camps that subsequently clashed in the First World War.— 4
[6] This letter is printed according to a handwritten copy made by an unknown person. Failing to decipher Marx's handwriting, he put 'Kranz?' in square brackets after the addressee's name, Kraus. Also in square brackets and with a question mark is the word 'proceeded'. The copy contains further notes made by the same person.— 6
[7] Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London [1934].—7, 60, 320, 349, 394, 403, 410,
[8] A reference to the German Workers' Educational Society in London, which was founded in February 1840 by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and other leaders of the League of the Just. In 1847 and 1849-50 Marx and Engels took an active part in the Society's work, but on 17 September 1850 they and a number of their followers withdrew from it because the Willich-Schapper sectarian and adventurist faction had temporarily increased its influence in the Society. The subsequent weakening of the sectarians' influence made it possible for Marx and Engels to resume their work in the Educational Society late in 1850. When the International Working Men's Association was set up, the Society, with Friedrich Lessner as one of its leaders, became the German Section of the International in London. This letter deals with the differences of opinion associated with the need to work out a new tactics for the German Social-Democrats after the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law in October 1878 (see Note 16).—7, 72, 252, 333, 334, 356
[26] The book review column of the Jahrbuch für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (Erster Jahrgang. Zweite Hälfte, Zürich-Oberstrass, 1880) featured two reviews by Nieuwenhuis, one of Eduard von Hartmann's Die Phänomenologie des sittlichen Be-wusstseins (Berlin, 1879), and the other, of Dr J. A. Levy's Engelsch Katheder-socialisme (Belinfanto, s' Gravenhage, 1879).—16
[30] Between mid-August and 18 September 1880, Engels was on holiday in Ramsgate and Bridlington Quay.— 17, 23, 34, 35, 39
[38] Marx and his family were on holiday in Ramsgate from early August to 13 September 1880.—21, 24, 35, 46, 60
[43] Marx met John Swinton, then responsible editor of the New York Sun, in Ramsgate in August 1880. Swinton published an account of the interview Marx granted him in The Sun on 6 September 1880 (see Vol. 24, pp. 583-85), and in the collection Current Views and Notes of Forty Days in France and England, New York, 1880.— 23, 40, 77
[46] The reference is to the suspension, in August 1880, owing to the shortage of funds, of the publication of the French newspaper L'Egalité, to which Paul Lafargue had been contributing.— 24, 27
[60] Liebknecht visited Marx and Engels in London in the last ten days of September 1880. (Bebel was unable to come.) They discussed the stance of the party's printed organ Der Sozialdemokrat (Zurich) during the operation of the Anti-Socialist Law. The Institute of Marxism-Leninism does not have Engels' letter to Liebknecht mentioned here.— 35, 38, 42, 50
[63] The French translation of Volume One of Capital was prepared by Joseph Roy. Marx made substantial changes in and additions to the manuscript. For this reason, he maintained that, like the German original, the French edition had a scientific significance of its own. In conformity with the French edition, changes were introduced into the subsequent editions of Capital in German, Russian and other languages. The publication was undertaken by Maurice Lachâtre, a French journalist and publisher. The book was printed b"y the Lahure press in Paris. Under the contract signed by Marx and Lachâtre, Capital was to come out in instalments, 44 in all, 16 printed pages each. The work was printed in two instalments at a time, but was sold in series of five instalments each, which made nine series in all. Publication was begun in September 1872 and completed in November 1875. Having received a copy of Capital from Marx, Swinton wrote to him on 7 December 1880: 'A thousand thanks for the great work Capital which I shall have bound handsomely, and keep as a treasure through life.'—40, 42
[6 5] A reference to the so-called local state of siege declared by Bismarck in Berlin and its environs on 28 November 1878 on the strength of Para. 28 of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 16) and extended to Hamburg, its environs and the adjacent Prussian ter-ritories (see also Note 198) on 29 October 1880. Under it, meetings could be held only with police permission, distribution of printed matter in public places was pro-hibited, persons considered politically unreliable were deported, and the right to own, carry, import and pass on arms was withdrawn or restricted.— 41, 43, 152