1883
My dear Lavrov,
I hasten to acknowledge receipt of your letter enclosing a postal order for 124.50 frs. I shall not be able to cash it until Wednesdaya at the earliest, as tomorrow I have to examine the manuscripts left by Marx. [2] On completion of the commission I shall announce the fact in the Sozialdemokrat of Zurich, and shall ask the editorial department to send you one or two copies ofthat particular number. It goes without saying that no mention will be made of Citizen Krantz'sb name. [3]
I have found the manuscript of the Zirkulation des Kapitals[11] and of the third book: Die Gestaltungen des Gesammtprozessesd — some 1,000 in-folio pages. [4] So far it's impossible for me to say whether the manuscript as it stands is in a fit condition to go to press. In any case I shall have to copy it out as it is in rough draft. Tomorrow I shall at last have time enough to devote several hours to going through all the manuscripts that Moor has left us, in particular an outline of dialectics which he had always intended to do. [5] But he always refrained from telling us how far his work had progressed, for he was aware that, once people realised something was ready, he would be pestered until he consented to its publication. All this is between you and me; I have no right to publish anything without Tussy who is my literary co-executrix.
2. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 11 April
We were all delighted and surprised to hear that our good, brave — to the point of madness — Lopatin had so happily regained his freedom.[6] Let us hope that, while retaining his bravery, he has left his madness behind him in Russia. I hope to see him here one of these days. Please give him my warm regards.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
2
ENGELS T O LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 11 April 1883
My dear Laura,
I do indeed think, along with you, that Paul ought to go and see his mother and I have told him so many a time and many a year ago. As to the extra expense, that will not be much and I can soon find you that, if informed in time. Only, if things are as you describe, it will require some considerable diplomacy on Paul's part, not to spoil his own game — that Christian sister of charity ought not to be made an enemy of [7]—she is always there and Paul not, and if only her sus-picions are aroused, be sure she will never cease to beguile the old woman i«to a will as much in her favour as the law will permit. So that point I suppose is settled — you'll have to look after the execution.
We all of us have had a hearty laugh at your account of the Argenteuil adventures. [8] It is so like him a from beginning to end. To-day it is a week that Tussy sent him a very categorical letter: when is the boya to come? Not a line in reply. // est toujours en train de réfléchir.b
Paul is sure of six months at least.[9] He was awfully funky about it when here, and amused Liebknecht out of all measure with his horror carceris.c But if he does not now start in earnest to learn German, I shall consider him to be nothing but un enfant gâté.d Imagine he writes to me that he will learn it—'comme vous le dites très bien (!) il pourra (!) devenir nécessaire que je le sache pour des traductions!'.e As if the
perfection of his own accomplishments, bright as they are, did not entirely depend on his reading certain German things, published and unpublished! He rejoices in the prospect of the 2nd volume [of] Capital being published, but will he ever be able to read it?
If M-me Gendre will translate the Manifestf into French and let me revise the translation (it's no child's play, you know) I will write her a preface sufficient to explain the historical circumstances, etc. ' ° But as I know nothing much of the lady, I am bound to say at present: no revision, no preface. A right to stop any proceedings of hers in that direction I have not. This notabene is for Paul. So is this: What speech of Giffen he writes about I don't know, nor where it was published.
Pumps is still 'expectant', or was so at least last night. Percy's mother told him the other day that really he ought to be a little better informed in a case like that.
Jollymeyer is here for a few days. Since then (as some days before he left 10 days ago) we have every evening a bobby promenading before the house, when I let Carlo out about 12. The imbeciles evidently think we are manufacturing dynamite, when in reality we are discussing whisky.
Kind regards from him and myself to both of you.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
3. Engels to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis. 11 April
122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Comrade,
You must understand that, since the death of my old friend, I have been so taken up with correspondence, business matters, the perusal of his writings, etc., that I have been able to attend only to what was absolutely imperative.[2] Today I have at last found a minute or two in which to thank you for your letter of condolence ' ' and for your excellent obituary in Recht voor Allen.(1) That obituary was undoubtedly one of the best we have seen, and was unanimously ac-claimed as such among our circle of intimates here.
Many thanks, too, on behalf of his surviving daughters(2) and of myself, to the Dutch workers' party ' [2] for their participation, at least in spirit, in our friend's last rites. In this they were at one with our German, French, Spanish, Russian and American comrades.
Should fate or the urge to travel — in our case sadly curbed — bring me to Holland, I shall consider myself under an obligation to look you up, just as I would urge you to look me up should you come to England.
Marx has left a great wad of manuscript for the second part of Capital, the whole of which I must first read (and what handwriting!) before I can tell to what extent it is printable and to what extent it requires complementing from subsequent notebooks. [4] At all events, the main substance is there. Since I cannot as yet say anything more definite, however, I would ask you not to put anything in the papers about it just now, as this might lead to misunderstandings. Besides, Marx's youngest daughter Eleanor is my literary co-executrix, I can do nothing without her and the ladies, as you know, are sticklers for form.
Excuse me dat ik niet op hollandsch schrijf*; in recent years I have had no practice in the use of your language.
Very sincerely yours,
F. Engels
I enclose my photograph and beg you to send me yours. As soon as we have got new ones of Marx I shall send you one.
4. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 14 April
Dear Mr Bernstein,
Dr Aveling, editor of Progress, wrote to The Republican with a view to purchasing the wood block of Marx's portrait which appeared in that paper. [13] Came the reply: THATBLOCK. HAS BEEN SENT TO GERMANY FOR THE Sozialdemokrat, so IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO HAVE IT. Aveling now en-joins me to write forthwith, asking if he could have the block as soon as possible. If not, then perhaps a cliché of it. There may also be some misunderstanding, the block having, perhaps, gone to the Neue Welt. Please let me know at once by postcard. [14]
The report of the Congress ' [5] most edifying. ' [6]
In great haste,
Yours,
F.E.
The 2nd volume of Capital is there — but I can't tell you what a state it's in— 1,000 pages of ms. to go through. [17] However, don't put anything in the paper yet; as soon as I can say anything for sure, I'll let you have something authoritative.
5. Engels to Thomas James Knöwles. 17 April[18]
Dear Sir,
There exists a manuscript — a critical résumé of Das Kapital by me a — among the papers of the late Dr Marx, but up to to-day we have been unable to find it amongst the mass of papers left by him.
However, even if found, I should hesitate to send it to you at least for the purpose you indicate. b I am not aware that it is usual, in the literature of this or any other country, for one author to lend his manuscripts to another.
As to our experience of English review-writers it has not been very encouraging. With the exception of a few clergymen of the Church of England, they have invariably distorted our views and disfigured our actions. Their utter ignorance of our theory and practice has been equalled only by their presumption. The XIX Century I believe, in July 1878, published an article of George Howell on the Internationalc brimfull of untruths and inaccuracies. Marx sent you a replya
but you refused to insert it.
I am afraid, if you want to acquaint yourself with Marx's views you will have to read the German, Russian or French edition of Das Kapital.
I know but one living Englishman capable of giving a correct account of the contents of Das Kapital. It is a barrister in Manchester.b
If you desire I shall be glad to ask him whether he is willing to undertake the task for you.
Yours faithfully
Jos. Knowles Esq. the Hollies, Clapham Common
S.W.
6. Engels to Philipp Van Patten. 18 April[19]
Philipp Van Patten, 57 2nd Avenue, New York
Esteemed Comrade,
My statement in reply to your inquiry of the 2nd April as to Karl Marx's position with regard to the Anarchists in general and Johann Most in particular shall be short and clear.
Marx and I, ever since 1845, have held the view that one of the final results of the future proletarian revolution will be the gradual dissolution and ultimate disappearance of that political organisation called the State; an organisation the main object of which has ever been to secure, by armed force, the economical subjection of the working majority to the wealthy minority. With the disappearance of a wealthy minority the necessity for an armed repressive State-force disappears also. At the same time we have always held, that in order to arrive at this and the other, far more important ends of the social revolution of the future, the proletarian class will first have to possess itself of the organised political force of the State and with its aid stamp out the resistance of the Capitalist class and re-organise society. This is stated already in the Communist Manifesto of 1847, end of Chapter II. a
The Anarchists reverse the matter. They say, that the Proletarian revolution has to begin by abolishing the political organisation of the State. But after the victory of the Proletariat, the only organisation the victorious working class finds ready-made for use, is that of the State. It may require adaptation to the new functions. b But to destroy that at such a moment, would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious working class can exert its newly conquered power, keep down its capitalist enemies and carry out that economical revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a defeat0 and in a massacre of the working class like that after the Paris Commune.
Does it require my express assertion, that Marx opposed these anarchist absurdities from the very first day that they were started in their present form by Bakunin? The whole internal history of the International Working Men's Association is there to prove it. The Anarchists tried to obtain the lead of the International, by the foulest means, ever since 1867 [20] and the chief obstacle in their way was Marx. The result of the five years' struggle was the expulsion, at the Hague Congress, September 1872, of the Anarchists from the International, [2] ' and the man who did most to procure that expulsion was Marx. Our old friend F. A. Sorge of Hoboken, who was present as a delegate, can give you further particulars if you desire.
Now as to Johann Most. If any man asserts that Most, since he turned anarchist, has had any relations with, or support from Marx, he is either a dupe or a deliberate liar. After the first No. of the London Freiheit had been published, a Most did not call upon Marx and myself more than once, at most twice. Nor did we call on him or even meet him accidentally anywhere or at any time since his new-fangled anarchism had burst forth in that paper. b Indeed, we at last ceased to take it in as there was absolutely 'nothing in it'. We had for his anarchism and anarchist tactics the same contempt as for that of the people from whom he had learnt it.c
While still in Germany, Most published a 'popular' extract of Das Kapital.d Marx was requested to revise it for a second edition. I assisted Marx in that work. We found it impossible to eradicate more than the very worst mistakes, unless we re-wrote the whole thing from beginning to end, and Marx consented his corrections being inserted on the express condition only that his name was never in any way connected with even this revised form of Johann Most's production. e
You are perfectly at liberty to publish this letter in the Voice of the People,f if you like to do so.
Yours fraternally,
F. E.
7. Engels to Thomas James Knowles. 20 April[2 2]
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London,] 20 April 1883
Dear Sir,
If we do find the ms. in question I shall be glad and give you the refusal of it, on two self-understood conditions but which I may as well mention 1 ) that in case of refusal you do not communicate it to anybody else, and 2) that in case you print it, it appears as a separate article out of all connection with any other.
Yours faithfully,
F. E.
Allow me to say that I am no 'Dr' but a retired cotton-spinner. [23]
8. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 23 April[24]
Herewith also the proofs.[2] [5] Your letter received; shall answer it this week with an article about Marx for the Sozialdemokrat. I still have all sorts of matters to deal with before I can finish it off properly.[26] The little piece about the good Marx being led astray by the evil Engels has been performed countless times since 1844, alternating with the other little piece about Ormuzd-Engels being lured away from the path of virtue by Ahriman-Marx. Now, however, the eyes of the worthy Parisians will at last be opened.
Yours,
F. E.
9. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 24 April[2 7]
Dear Sorge,
Enclosed a line or two for Gartman from his friend Brocher, a muddle-headed anarchist but a sterling chap. Perhaps you would be good enough to send it on.
The Volkszeitung has perpetrated follies enough, though still not as many as I expected. Nevertheless they have all contributed their share, Schewitsch, Cuno, Douai, Hepner. Here was a quartet performed by would-be know-alls who, JOINTLY AND SEVERALLY, knew damned little. However I felt impelled to write a line to the editors,a pointing out that they had printed my telegram to you b as though it had been addressed to them and had, in my second to them,c inserted a false statement to the effect that Marx had died in Argenteuil. d We did not, I told them, stand for that sort ofthing over here; as a result they had made it impossible for me to send them any further reports and, in the event of their again venturing to make such misuse of my name, I should be compelled to ask you to announce at once in public that the whole thing was a falsification on their part. Those gentlemen ought to confine their Yankee HUMBUG to themselves. Besides, the Americans are far more honest; according to the Volkszeitung, I was sent a telegram [28] which I never received and I was almost inclined to believe that the gentlemen on the Volkszeitung had pocketed the money for themselves. Now Van Patten writes to say that there hadn't been any money in the first place. I am now compelled to make this publicly known over here, for otherwise it would be said that I had withheld the telegram from the Paris press and the Sozialdemokrat. The answer re Most, which I sent Van Patten in response to his enquiry,a will doubtless have already been published by him by the time this arrives.
At the Copenhagen Congress ' [5] it was resolved that Liebknecht's and Bebel's trip to America should take place next spring.[29] It has to do with money for the election campaign in 1884-85. (All this is between ourselves.) Liebknecht has proposed to Tussy that she should ac-company him as his secretary and she is very keen to go; so it might easily be that you see her there before long. Generally speaking we have not made any plans yet. The literary work (third edition, Volume I of Capital, editing of Volume II, the ms. of which has been found though as yet there is no knowing to what extent it is ready for printing or requires supplementing, ' [7] biography based on the enormous correspondence,[30] etc.) takes up all my spare time, besides which Tussy has a mass of literary ENGAGEMENTS to get through.
You are, of course, fully entitled to print the passages on Henry George in Marx's letters.[3] ' The question is, however, whether it might not be better to wait until I am able to sort out for you the marginal notes made by Marx in his copy of George's book and then do the whole lot at one go. Resumes of the kind Marx provides, theoretically acute but brief and unaccompanied by examples, are surely still above the head of your average American and after all there is no hurry. I shall take a closer look at the things as soon as I have time. If, in the meanwhile, you send me a copy of the relevant passage in Marx's letter, it will make the job simpler. b Pamphlet herewith. I have only received a few copies myself; the 2nd edition is in the press.[2] [5] Does Weydemeyer know English now?[3 2]
His earlier translations were grammatically and stylistically quite un-printable; they would have made us look appalling asses and at the same time exposed the author to ridicule. Anyhow I should like to see a specimen.
Your
F. E.
10. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 28 April
Dear Bernstein,
(I think we should discard the boring 'Mr'.) The continuation of what follows will contain some correspondence, i. a. with Americans over Most.(1)
It is unforgivable that you are not returning via London,[33] I had quite counted on it. Well, perhaps you'll come in summer and we'll take a swim in the sea together. You can always be sure of a bed at my home.
Mayall, the leading London photographer always to work for Marx, has the principle: WE DO NOT TAKE MONEY FROM EMINENT PEOPLE. SO we can't now press the man for copies (he is extremely muddled), except by a roundabout route. Hence we .have given him an order, claiming it was for a German bookseller, for 1,000 cartes de visite
(£12 = M240 = 24d. each) and 200 CABINET PORTRAITS ([3]/[4] figure) à £8 = M160 = 80d. each. It is the last and best picture to depict Moor at his sprightly Olympian ease, confident of victory. I am offering them to you, and to Liebknecht and Sorge in New York after deducting those we need ourselves. How many do you want? You don't have to sell them all at once. They will be better in any case than any made there.
Yours,
F.E.
11. Engels to August Bebel. 30 April[3 4]
Dear Bebel,
There is a very simple answer to your question as to whether I might remove to Germany or Switzerland or somewhere else on the Continent, namely that I shall not go to any country from which one can be expelled. But that is something one can only be safe from in England and America. I should at most go to the latter country on a visit, unless otherwise compelled. Hence I shall remain here.
Moreover England has another great advantage. Since the demise of the International there has been no labour movement whatsoever here, save as an appendage to the bourgeoisie, the radicals and for the pursuit of limited aims within the capitalist system. Thus, only here does one have the peace one needs if one is to go on with one's theoretical work. Everywhere else one would have had to take part in practical agitation and waste an enormous amount of time. As regards practical agitation, I should have achieved no more than anyone else; as regards theoretical work, I cannot yet see who could take the place of Marx and myself. What younger men have attempted in this line is worth little, indeed, for the most part less than nothing. Kautsky, the only one who applies himself to study, has to write for a living and for that reason if no other can achieve nothing. And now, in my sixty-third year, up to my eyes in my own work and with the prospect of a year's work on the second volume of Capital and another year's work on Marx's biography,[30] along with the history of the German socialist movement from 1843 to 1863 and of the International from 1864-72,[35] it would be madness for me to exchange my peaceful retreat here for some place where one would, have to take part in meetings and newspaper battles, which alone would be enough to blur, as it necessarily must, the clarity of one's vision. To be sure, if things were as they were in 1848 and 1849, I would again take to the saddle if need arose. But now — strict division of labour. I must even withdraw as much as possible from the Sozialdemokrat. You have only to think of the enormous correspondence, formerly shared out between Marx and myself, which I have had to conduct on my own for over a year now. For after all, we wish to maintain intact, in so far as it is in my power, the many threads from all over the world which spontaneously converged upon Marx's study.
As regards a monument to Marx,[36] I do not know what ought to be done. The family is against it. The simple headstone made for his wife, which now also bears his and his little grandson's(1) names, would be desecrated in their eyes if replaced by a monument which, here in London, would be scarcely distinguishable from the pretentious philistine monuments surrounding it. A London cemetery of this kind looks quite different from a German one. The graves lie closely side by side, not room for a tree between them, and a monument is not allowed to exceed the length and breadth of the small plot that has been bought.
Liebknecht spoke of a complete edition of Marx's writings. All very well, but Dietz's plan for Volume II has made people forget that that Volume was long since promised to Meissner and that an edition of the other, shorter works would likewise have to be offered to Meissner first, and then could only appear abroad. After all, even before the Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] it was always said that not even the Communist Manifesto could be printed in Germany save in the document read out at your trial.[38]
The manuscript of Volume II was completed prior to 1873, probably even prior to 1870.[17] It is written in German script; after 1873 Marx never used anything but Latin characters.
It is too late for registration, so this letter must go off as it is; however, I shall seal it with my seal.
A letter this evening to Liebknecht in Berlin.[39]
Your
F.E.
12. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 1 May
Dear Sorge,
So as to obtain a good photograph of Marx, we have ordered from Mayall, the leading photographer here, who took the last ones of him,
1,000 cartes de visite r\2
i. e. approx. 3d. apiece;
200 CABINET SIZE, [3]/[4] figure, à £8 i. e. approx. 9d. apiece of the last nice one.
You can have some of these at cost price— I have also offered them to Liebknecht and Bernstein in Zurich/ If the above quantity does not suffice, no doubt we shall be able to get hold of more, but a quick decision is necessary.
Your
F. Engels
13. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 10 May[3 4]
Dear Liebknecht,
If you carry on in this way, causing me unnecessary expenditure of ink by the schemes you keep hatching and the ill-considered actions you perform off your own bat, our correspondence would assuredly cease.
All I asked you for originally was a reply, telling me what my legal position was in regard to Wigand. The 1845 contract envisages a 2nd edition and lays down the fee to be paid for it.[40] Question:
1. Am / still bound by this? 2. If so, and if Wigand refuses to print a 2nd edition on the conditions of payment agreed, does that release me outright?
I have never been able to get an answer from you to these simple questions and, since you promised to obtain one for me, I can only describe it as 'neglect on your part'.
Never have I instructed you either personally or via a third party to act on my behalf, and I cannot conceive why, at this moment, you took it into your head to set such a thing in motion off your own bat and without even reflecting. / would expressly request that you make no move whatever; I should at once write to Wigand and dis-claim everything.
Meissner has written today; makes no mention at all of publication instalments." The contract does not entitle us to interfere here. But if Dietz can show Meissner that it is to his own advantage, he may do it after all.
Lafargue's address: 66 Boulevard de Port-Royal, Paris (close to Ste-Pélagie, handy for a chap going to quod).a
Photographs will be delivered in batches and sent to Dietz as soon as possible.b
14. Engels to August Bebel. 10- 11 May[41][3 4]
Dear Bebel,
That you would sooner not sit in the Reichstag, I am ready to believe. But you can see what your absence has made possible. Some years ago Bracke wrote to me saying: Bebel is, in fact, the only one of us possessed of real parliamentary tact.[42] And I have found this constantly confirmed. So there's probably no alternative but for you to return to your post at the first opportunity and I should be delighted were you to be elected in Hamburg so that necessity relieved you of your doubts.[43]
Certainly, agitational and parliamentary work becomes very boring after a time. It is much the same thing as advertising, puffing one's wares and travelling around are in business: success is slow in coming, and some never achieve it. But there's no other alternative, and once you are in it you've got to see the thing through to the end, if all your trouble is not to have been for nothing. And the Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] means that this, the only course to have remained open, simply cannot be dispensed with.
Despite the way it was written, the report on the Copenhagen Congress ' [5] enabled me to read sufficiently between the lines to amend Liebknecht's, as always rosy, version of things.a At all events I per-ceived that the half-and-halfs [44] had suffered a severe defeat and this, I admit, led me to believe that they would now draw in their horns. Yet such does not seem to be the case, or not to that degree. We have never been under any illusions about these men. Neither Hasenclever nor, for that matter, Hasselmann, should ever have been admitted, but Liebknecht's undue haste over unification — against which, at the time, we protested for all we were worth — has landed us with a jackass and also, for a while, with a rascal.[45] In his day, Bios was a lively, courageous chap but after his marriage, etc., the stuffing was soon knocked out of him by the difficulty of making both ends meet. Geiser always was an indolent, self-opinionated fellow and Kayser a big-mouthed commis-voyageur.b Even in 1848 Rittinghausen was a nonentity; he's only a socialist proforma, in order to enlist our help in achieving his direct government by the people. But we have better things to do.
What you say about Liebknecht is something you have doubtless long been thinking.[46] We have known him for many years. Popularity is the very stuff of life to him. Hence he has got to conciliate and conceal in order to postpone the crisis. Besides, he's an optimist by nature and sees everything through rose-tinted spectacles. That's what keeps him so lively and is the main reason for his popularity, but it also has its disadvantages. So long as I corresponded only with him, not only did he report everything in accordance with his own rosy views, but also withheld everything that was unpleasant and, upon being questioned, replied in such an airy and off-hand way that, more than by anything else, one was unfailingly needled by the thought 'Can the man suppose us so stupid as to be taken in by it?' Add to that his incessant busyness, an undoubted asset in day-to-day agitation but involving us over here in a mass of useless letter-writing; a perpetual stream of projects whose only outcome was to burden other people with extra work — in short, as you will understand, all this made a really businesslike and down-to-earth correspondence of the kind I have conducted for years with you as well as with Bernstein a sheer impossibility. Hence the constant bickering and the honorary title he once jokingly conferred upon me here of being the rudest man in Europe. My letters to him were, it is true, often rude, but the rude-ness was conditioned by the contents of his own. No one knew that better than Marx.
Again, for all his valuable qualities, Liebknecht is a born schoolmaster. If a working man in the Reichstag happens to say me instead of I, or pronounce a short Latin vowel as a long one, and the bourgeois laugh, he's in despair. Hence he has to have 'eddicated' men, like that weakling Viereck who, with a single speech, would make us look more foolish in the Reichstag than would two thousand wrong 'mes'. And then, he can't wait. A momentary success, even if it means the sacrifice of a subsequent, far greater one, takes precedence over everything else. You people will discover that in America, when you go there in the wake of Fritzsche and Viereck.[47] Their mission was a blunder as great as the over-hasty unification with the Lassalleans who, six months later, would have come to you of their own accord — but as a disorganised gang without their bankrupt leaders.
As you see, I speak to you quite frankly — in confidence. But I also believe that you would do well firmly to resist Liebknecht's persuasive blandishments. Then he's bound to yield. If really confronted by a decision, he will certainly adopt the right course. But he would rather do so tomorrow than today, and in a year's time rather than tomorrow.
If a few deputies were in fact to vote for Bismarck's Bills, [48] thus planting a kiss on his backside in return for having theirs kicked, and if the parliamentary group [4] [9] failed to expel these people, I too would, of course, be capable of publicly disassociating myself from a party prepared to tolerate such a thing. To the best of my knowledge, however, that would be impossible, having regard to existing party discipline whereby the minority has got to vote with the majority. But you are better informed than I.
Any split that took place while the Anti-Socialist Law is in operation I should look upon as a misfortune, since all means of communi-cating with the masses have been cut off. But it may be forced on us and then we shall have to look facts in the face. So if anything of the sort should happen — no matter where you are — I should be glad if you could inform me and do so at once, for my German papers always arrive very belatedly.
Bios, when he went to Bremen after being expelled from Hamburg, did indeed write me a very plaintive letter[50] to which I sent a very firm reply.[3] [9] Now, my papers have for years been in the most shocking muddle, and finding this particular one would be a day's work. But some time I shall have to put them in order and, if needs be, shall send you the letter in the original.
Your view of the business conditions is being corroborated in England, France and America.[5] ' It is an intermediate crisis like that of 1841-42, but on a much vaster scale. Generally speaking, it is only since 1847 (because of Californian and Australian gold production which resulted in the world market becoming fully established) that the ten-year cycle has clearly emerged. Now, when America, France and Germany are beginning to break England's monopoly of the world market and when, therefore, overproduction is beginning, as it did before 1847, to assert itself more rapidly, the quinquennial intermediate crises are also recurring. Proof of this is the complete exhaus-tion of the capitalist mode of production. The period of prosperity no longer reaches its full term; overproduction recurs after only 5 years and, even during those 5 years, things in general go downhill. Which, however, is very far from proving that, between 1884 and 1887, we shan't have a period of pretty brisk trade, as happened between 1844 and 1847. But then the great crash will quite surely come.
11 May. I had wanted to write and tell you more about the general state of trade, but meanwhile it is time for the registered mail. Till next time, then.
Your
F. E.
15. Engels to Achille Loria. 20 May[5 2]
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sir,
I have received your pamphlet on Karl Marx. You are entitled to subject his doctrines to the most stringent criticism, indeed to misun-derstand them; you are entitled to write a biography of Marx which is pure fiction. But what you are not entitled to do, and what I shall never permit anyone to do, is slander the character of my departed friend.
Already in a previous worka you took the liberty of accusing Marx of quoting in bad faith. When Marx read this he checked his and your quotations against the originals and he told me that his were all correct and that if there was any bad faith it was on your part. And seeing how you quote Marx, how you have the audacity to make Marx speak of profit when he speaks of Mehrwerth,b when he defends himself time and again against the error of identifying the two (something which Mr Moore and I have repeated to you verbally here in London) I know whom to believe and where the bad faith lies.
This however is a trifle compared to your 'deep and firm conviction... that conscious sophistry pervades them all' (Marx's doctrines); that Marx 'did not baulk at paralogisms, while knowing them to be such', that 'he was often a sophist who wished to arrive, at the expense of the truth, at a negation of present-day society' and that, as Lamartine says, 'il jouait avec les mensonges et les vérités comme les enfants avec les osselets'.[0 53]
In Italy, a country of ancient civilisation, this might perhaps be taken as a compliment, or it might be considered great praise among armchair socialists,[54] seeing that these venerable professors could never produce their innumerable systems except 'at the expense of the truth'. We revolutionary communists see things differently. We regard such assertions as defamatory accusations and, knowing them to be lies, we turn them against their inventor who has defamed himself in thinking them up.
In my opinion, it should have been your duty to make known to the public this famous 'conscious sophistry' which pervades all of Marx's doctrines. But I look for it in vain! Nagott!" What a tiny mind one must have to imagine that a man like Marx could have 'always threatened his critics' with a second volume which he 'had not the slightest intention of writing', and that this second volume was nothing but 'an ingenious pretext dreamed up by Marx in place of scientific arguments'. This second volume exists and it will shortly be published. Perhaps you will then learn to understand the difference between Mehrwerth and profit.
A German translation of this letter will be published in the next issue of the Zurich Sozialdemokrat.
I have the honour of saluting you with all the sentiments you deserve.
F. E.
16. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 22 May[5 5]
Dear Old Man,
How can you suppose that / might somehow be able to find paid literary work for a young party memberb? After all, it is years since I had any sort of contact with German publishers apart from Meissner
(on account of Capital), let alone with newspapers and periodicals. So what could I do? Even if the man could translate the other way round, from German into French or English, I should be unable to help him find work. You would certainly do better to approach Liebknecht who after all has the Neue Z_eit and connections in plenty.
We shall be saddled with Marx's house until next March, so there is no need to be over-hasty about the removal or plans for the future. Moreover a tremendous amount of work is involved in getting these papers in order. What surprises me is that Marx has actually saved papers, letters and manuscripts from the period prior to 1848, splendid material for the biography which I shall of course be writing and which, inter alia, will also be the history of the Neue Rheinische Leitung and of the movement of 1848-49 on the Lower Rhine, as well as the history of the rascally emigration in London between 1849 and 1852 and of the International.[30] The first task is the editing of Volume II of Capital[4] and that is no joke. There are in existence 4 or 5 revisions of Book II, of which only the first is complete, the others having been merely started on " ; some labour when you're dealing with a man like Marx, who weighed every word. But to me it is a labour of love; after all I shall be back again with my old comrade.
For the past few days I have been sorting letters from 1842-62. As I watched the old times pass before my eyes they really came to life again, as did all the fun we used to have at our adversaries' expense. Many of our early doings made me weep with laughter; they didn't, after all, ever succeed in banishing our sense of humour. But there were also many very serious moments in between whiles.
This is in confidence; mind you, don't let a word of it get into the papers. Such information as is ripe for imparting will be published by me from time to time in the Sozialdemokrat. Bernstein is getting on very well, he is eager to learn, is witty and has an open mind, can put up with criticism and is quite free of all petty-bourgeois moralisings. But our lads in Germany have also been truly magnificent, ever since the time that the Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] liberated them from the 'eddicated' gentlemen who, in their ignorant academic muddle-headedness, had attempted prior to 1878 to instruct the workers from on high, an attempt that was, alas, condoned by all too many of the 'leaders'. This worthless lumber has not yet been entirely cleared away, but the movement has again taken a decidedly revolutionary turn. That is precisely what is so splendid about our lads, the fact that the masses are far better than almost any of the leaders; and now that the Anti-Socialist Law is compelling the masses to take care of the movement themselves, now that the influence of the leaders is reduced to a minimum, the movement is better than ever.
Your old friend
F. Engels
17. Engels to Ludwig Klopfer. 22 May
Dear Mr Klopfer,
I should be only too glad to help you if I possibly could. However I have absolutely no publishing or literary connections in Germany and should not know whom to approach. (1) The party, however, still has various periodicals, etc., in Germany, e. g. Liebknecht's and Kautsky's Neue £eit in Stuttgart (Dietz Verlag) ; you should get Becker to give you letters for them. If anything can be done for you, it is over there; we here are as cut off from everything as you are in Geneva.
Your letter of the 9th bears the Geneva postmark of the 13th. I hope that this will at least partly explain my delay in replying.
18. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 22 May
Trusting that the adoption of the above course will enable you to achieve your object, I remain,
Yours truly,
F. Engels
18
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 22 May 1883
My dear Laura,
I had not, as Paul suggests, forgotten his five pd. note, but having Sam Moore here, could not get a free moment when to get it ready and register the letter. Yesterday evening Sam returned to Manchester and the note would have left here to-day, but for Paul's letter which alters his directions to me. The cheque is enclosed, £ 10.-
So ce cher Paul is while I write this, a prisoner. [9] He has just (5.45) been debarred from receiving visitors and can now in all rest and peace discuss with Guesde the chances of la révolution révolutionnaire. We drank his health last Sundaya in a bowl of splendid Maitrankb
and wished him any amount of pluck and patience.
Well, for a long time I thought you might profit of Paul's involun-tary seclusion, to come over to London, and would have at once placed the whole of 122 Regent's Park Road at your disposal, but from all I learnt I was afraid I might hurt someone's feelings by such a proposal. Even Nim when she returned, never mentioned a word about it, that you had spoken of showing your bright face in this dull climate; and when Paul wrote he expected you to lunch with him every morning in St-Pélagie I lost heart altogether. Now however it is all right, and I hope to hear soon from you that you accept my invitation, to make this place your headquarters for a couple of months at least, which of course will not exclude trips to the sea-side, etc. If Paul has to be under lock and key, so much the more reason for you to look after your own health.
While Sam was here, we found out, through him, the very unpleasant fact that Mohr never had, nor have we, the right to stop unauth-orised translation of the Kapital. The right was lost as soon as the first year elapsed without a commencement of translation being published. So as there are several fellows in the field,[56] we have to dodge and to use the unpublished 2nd volume as a means to bring them round.
The 2nd volume will give me an awful deal of work — at least the II book. [4] There is one complete text, of about 1868, but a mere brouillon.a Then there are at least three, if not four, Ueb er arbeitungen b
belonging to various later periods, but none of them completed. That will be a job to select from them a definitive text! The 3rd book is complete since 1869-70 and has never been touched since. But here, where the rent of land is treated, I shall have to compare his Russian extracts[57] for notes, facts and instances. Maybe I shall be able to con-coct even a bit of a 3rd volume from the ms. of 1858-62 [58] (the beginning of which appeared in Berlin [in] 1859c) and which at the end of every chapter contains the critical history of the theoretical points discussed in it.
Lately I have been occupied with sorting the correspondence. There is a large box full of most important letters [from] 1841 (nay 1837 from your grandfather Marxd) to 1862. It is nearly sorted, but it will take me some hours more to complete it. I can assure you it is great fun to me to stumble over these old things most of which concern me as much as they did Mohr and there is such a deal to laugh over. Nim helps me — awful lot of dusting required! and we have many a good laugh over old times. The correspondence since 1862 he has sorted, in a passable way, himself. But before we fathom all the mysteries of that garret full of boxes, packets, parcels, books, etc., some time must elapse. And I have to prepare for the 3rd edition sundry additions from the French translation [59] which I know Mohr intended inserting; and that must be done in 3-4 weeks.
19. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 2 June
But now it's post-time and so good-bye for to-day.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
19
ENGELS T O LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 2 June 1883
My dear Laura,
Herewith cheque £ 10.- for Paul as desired. To judge from his letter, he seems to be pretty cheerful for his condition, but of course the grincement des clefs et des verroux(1) must be something awful.[9]
What is comparative liberty by day when one is reduced to solitary confinement by night, and how is he to sing:
Singet nicht in Trauertönen Von der Einsamkeit der Nacht, Denn sie ist, o holde Schönen, Zur Geselligkeit gemacht.(2)
As Paul is going to work up his German in prison, you might give him that to translate.
Now, by this time the two heroic martyrs(3) ought to be pretty well settled down and don't you think you might come over, say by Thursday or Friday nexta? The fact is I expect Jollymeier to-night who will be able to stay here till Monday week, 11 th June, and he would so like to see you. Moreover, Tussy talks very much about your coming and seems very anxious to have you here and to consult you about the disposal of the things in the house, etc., etc., the sole responsibility seems to weigh very much upon her. So that your journey would be to some extent on business. If you will come and if you write at once, I shall send you the funds by return, I should have added them to the cheque to-day, only my balance is low and I have money to come in next week.
Among Mohr's papers I have found a whole lot of mss, our common work, of before 1848.[60] Some of these I shall soon publish.
There is one I shall read to you when you are here, you will crack your sides with laughing. I read it to Nim and Tussy, Nim said: jetzt weiss ich auch, warum Sie %wei damals in Brüssel des Nachts so gelacht haben, dass kein Mensch im Hause davor schlafen konnte. b We were bold devils then, Heine's poetry is childlike innocence compared wim our prose.
There is a chance of a translation of the Kapital being published by Kegan Paul and Co., they would be the best men. [5 6] Tussy is going to see them on Mondayc; if anything practicable comes of it, we shall then go together afterwards. S. Moore will translate, and I shall revise. There are other people at it, but if we can arrange the thing, they will soon be out of the field. S. Moore was here in Whitweek, and we settled the matter with him, as far as he is concerned. He is by far the best man, slightly heavy, but that can be mended. He has been of immense use to us as our legal adviser. Indeed I have still to write to him by first mail upon a legal question.
Pumps is going on very well and her two babies too, the boy is awfully big and fat, very near the size of his sister! at least so says the proud Mamma. If you are here next Sunday (to-morrow) week, we shall have a grand bowl of Maitrank,d it is just in its prime now, I mean the Waldmeister, we have had two bowls here on Sundays and two at Tussy's in the week, and plenty of Moselle left!
If you say you will come, the same day I shall write to Dublin for a case of the best and of the super best Claret which we will finish quietly betwixt us.
A few lines to Paul in a day or two. In the meantime affectionally yours,
F. Engels
20. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 12- 13 Junea
Dear Bernstein,
It is half past eleven at night and having just read the proof of the second sheet of the third edition oï Capital* (no small task), and sent it off, I shall try and utilise what is left of the evening at least to begin a letter to you.
As regards internal matters, I had more or less read between the lines of the official reportb and, soon after, also received a short exposé from Bebel. Some while previously I had written and told Bebel that there must ultimately be a break with the ninnies of the right wing,c
but that in my view it was not in our interests to force it before we were again in a position to consort directly with the masses; i. e. not so long as the Anti-Socialist Law remained operative.[37] Should they force our hand, then we should see to it that it was they, not us, who rebelled against party discipline, in which case the game would already be ours. And they should be brought to do this if they refused to keep quiet. So far as Liebknecht is concerned, he will do everything in his power to put off the crisis, but when it does come and he realises that it can no longer be postponed, he will be in the right place.
Let me briefly sum up what I have to do:
1 ) Put the papers in order [2]; here almost everything has to be done by myself since no one except me knows about the old stuff, and there's an enormous pile of it in a fine state of disarray. Much is still missing and a lot of packages and boxes haven't even been opened yet.
2) See to the third edition, with sundry alterations and a few addenda from the French edition.[59] On top ofthat, read the proofs.
3) Take advantage of an opportunity that has presented itself to bring out an English translation — in connection with which I today called on one of the big publishers here a—and then revise the translation myself[56] (Moore, who will be doing it, is first-rate, a friend of ours for twenty-six years, but slow).
4) Collate the 3 or 4 versions of the beginning of Volume II and prepare them for the press, besides making a fair copy of the whole of the second volume. ' [7]
5) Spend a week every now and again tippling with Schorlemmer who returned to Manchester yesterday — he always brings some work with him, but o, jerum!b
Voilà la vie/c
The jackass in the Vossische (I've been sent the thingd four times) would certainly seem to have disseminated a lot of despondency in good old Germany respecting the despondent Marx. I might, some time when in really jolly mood, take a kick at him. Were these oafs to get the chance of reading the correspondence between Moor and myself, they'd be speechless with rage. Heine's poetry is trifling by comparison with our impudent, mocking prose. Moor was capable of becoming furiously angry, but down-in-the-mouth—jamais!e I was convulsed when I reread the old stuff. This correspondence is, by the way, also historically memorable and, in so far as it is in my power, it will end up in the right hands. Unfortunately I only have the letters Marx wrote after 1849, but those are complete.
Herewith part of the original draft from the last part of the Communist Manifesto which you want to keep as a memento. The first two lines were dictated, and were taken down by Mrs Marx. [6 2]
I would have sent you the enclosed poem by Weerth in time for the feuilleton, had you not so contrived matters that your letter arrived twelve hours too late — as it was, I had to wait and see whether you printed the feuilleton tel quel* Anyhow, you can put it in somewhere else.[63] If only by contrast with the solemn Freiligrath, all of Weerth's stuff is ironical and humorous. Never any question of 'she-rioushness' here.
As regards the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law, the chaps in Germany can never see beyond their own noses. By disappointing Russia (and things are far more acute there) with his proclamation in Moscow just as Frederick William IV disappointed the Prussians in 1841,[64] Alexander III has done more towards that end than all your Geisers, Bloses and Co. could ever do with their lamentations. If, one fine morning, he is riddled with bullets — as he surely will be — Bismarck's internal régime won't be worth a brass farthing. Then they'll change their tune. Even if old Williama merely (I don't mean Wilhelm Blosb) kicks the bucket, there will of necessity be changes. The men of today have never experienced, nor can they possibly imagine, what a crown prince,c grown up in what has in the meantime become a revolutionary situation, is capable of. And a fool, what's more, as vacillating and weak-willed as 'our Fritz'. Nor, for that matter, can the possibility be excluded that the crazy French government may fall foul of all the world in such a way as to incite violent action in Paris. Tunis, Egypt, Madagascar, Tonkin[65] — and now they are actually seeking to contest England's possession of a few rocky islands, with barely 50 inhabitants, off the coast of Normandy. I only hope that nothing happens in Paris, for the stupidity that pre-vails among the masses there is exceeded only here, in London.
And on top of that the ingenuous Bismarck works for us like the very devil. His latest theory — that the imperial constitution is nothing but a contract made by governments for which they can substi-tute another one any old day, without consulting the Reichstag — is a real godsend to us. Just let him try. Add to which the manifest intention to bring about a conflict, his stupid, impertinent Bödi-kers & Co. in the Reichstag — all this is grist to our mill. True, this means the end of the catch-phrase about 'one reactionary mass',[66]
a phrase generally appropriate only for declamation (or, again, for a truly revolutionary situation). For it is precisely in this that the quirk of history — one operating in our favour — consists, namely that the different elements of that feudal and bourgeois mass erode, fight with and devour one another, to our advantage and are, therefore, the very opposite of that uniform mass which your lout imagines he can dismiss by dubbing the whole lot 'reactionary'. On the contrary. All these diverse scoundrels must first mutually destroy, utterly ruin and discred-it each other, and pave the way for us by proving their ineptitude, each lot in turn. It was one of Lassalle's greatest mistakes, when engaged in agitation, wholly to lose sight of what little dialectics he had learned from Hegel. Thus, just like Liebknecht, he never saw more than one side and, since the former, for certain reasons, happened to see the right side, he ultimately proved superior to the great Lassalle after all.
The one regrettable thing about the present German bourgeois movement is precisely that the chaps constitute no more than 'one reactionary mass', and this has got to stop. We can make no progress until at least part of the bourgeoisie has been forced over onto the side of a genuine movement, whether by internal or external events. That is why we have now had enough of Bismarck's regime in its present form, why he can only benefit us by provoking a conflict or resigning and also why the time will come for the Anti-Socialist Law to be done away with by semi-revolutionary or wholly revolutionary means. All those arguments as to whether the 'Lesser'[67] alone should go, or the Law as a whole, or whether the ordinary penal law should be tight-ened up, seem to me like arguments about the virginity of Mary in partu and post partum* What is crucial is the wider political situation both at home and abroad; and this changes, does not remain as it is today. In Germany, by contrast, the case is discussed solely on the assumption that present conditions in Germany will persist eternally. And running parallel with this is an idea, related to that of one reactionary mass, namely that, with the subversion of the present state of affairs, we shall come to the helm. That is nonsense. A revolution is a lengthy process, cf. 1642-46 and 1789-93[68]; and in order that circumstances should be ready for us and we for them, all the intermediate parties must come to power in turn and destroy themselves. And 1883
then we shall come — and may, perhaps, once more be momentarily routed. Not that I think this very probable in the normal course of events.
I have today despatched to 'Volksbuchhandlung, Hottingen-Zurich'',a
freight forward per CONTINENTAL PARCELS EXPRESS (correspondent of the German and Swiss parcel post), a parcel containing the photographs ordered,b invoice enclosed. Of the money you should retain the £\lj-credited to my account over there, against 4 frs for snifters transmitted by proxy, subscriptions, etc. (If, when remitting the balance, it would be more convenient to include a little more or a little less, that would, of course, be ALL RIGHT.) Over here 500 cartesc and 280 CABI-
NETS are still available — first come, first served. Not that you have any competitors as yet, save for Dietz. Just how much is pushed on to me you will realise when I tell you that I have today had to attend, single-handed, to all the details of checking and repacking the photographs for you and Dietz, and have likewise had to take them to the office (2 1I2 English miles from here). And then I'm expected to work!
Borde is a jackass whom we have known for years; at Marx's house there are a hundred or more of the notebooks he sent him, lying about unopened. Envoyez-le au diable.A
I shall not come to Switzerland until the continental routes are safer. After all, there was no certainty of Marx's being able to travel to, or through, France unscathed this summer. Once one has been expelled, that is that, unless one is prepared to take steps such as I should find impossible. Don't I know it!
You do not, by the way, bore me in the least with internal matters. Anyone who's abroad can never hear enough about the details of this sort of internal struggle in a workers' party which, despite everything, is the leading one in Europe. And that kind ofthing is withheld from me on principle by friend Liebknecht, all of whose reports are rosy red, dawn pink, sky-blue and green as the tender leaves of hope.
For the anniversary of the June battle of 1848, I am sending you a Neue Rheinische Reifung article by Marx,e who was the only man in the whole of the European press to back up the insurgents after they had fallen.
Kindest regards,
Yours,
F.E.
13 June 1883
Do you think the time is ripe for the Sozialdemokrat % feuilleton to print an excessively impudent piece Marx and I wrote in 1847,[69] in which the 'true socialists', who are now also members of the Reichstag, are pulled to pieces? The most impudent thing ever to have been written in the German language.
21. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 19 June
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sir,
I was very pleased to receive your fine Italian translation of my Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.[70] I have been through it and I have suggested minor alterations in a number of places, although I am dif-fident and aware that my Italian is imperfect and that I am out of practice. I hope that despite this you can understand the translation (into Italian or French) of the additions to the first German edition which I have inserted at the corresponding points in your manuscript.
I am enclosing a copy of the recently published German edition, and a copy of the 2nd edition, which is going to press at the moment, will follow.[25] I am sorry that the translation could not have been made from the German text, since Italian is much better suited than French to the dialectical mode of presentation.
Thank you for your kind offer to send me several copies of the translation; six, or at most a dozen, will be enough.
Yours respectfully,
Fred. Engels
I am sending by the midday post a registered parcel containing
1) your manuscript, 2) the copy of the German edition.
22. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 22 June
Dear Bernstein,
When you go to Paris, you must certainly cross the water and spend a day or two here. The trip both ways will cost you less than the amount you would fritter away in Paris in that time. A room has already been prepared for you here. I can then also show you the impudent ms. I mentioned, as well as the other mss.[69] Madame Lafargue will advise you about the best way to make the journey.
Yours,
Regards to Liebknecht.
F.E.
23. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 24 June
23
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 24 June 1883
My dear Laura,
When you spoke of your knowledge of what poor Moor's views and wishes had been at Vevey,a ' it was in connection with dispositions of a more or less testamentary nature, and I therefore naturally concluded that you alluded to similar subjects. And as those might comprise wishes as to what should be done with some mementos of your Mama, etc., books and so forth, and as here we are bound to come to some conclusion or other, and Tussy moreover seems to shun responsibility of acting on her own hook, I thought it my clear duty to inform you, so that, in case you had anything to communicate, it could be done in time.
After poor Mohr's death, on my inquiry, Tussy informed me that he had told her, she and I were to take possession of all his papers, and procure the publication of what was to be published, especially the 2nd volume" and the mathematical works.[72] The 3rd German editionb is in hand, I am looking after that too. If you wish to have Mohr's exact words, Tussy will no doubt give them to you if you ask her to do so.
This matter was talked about here when Paul was here, and I am almost certain he is aware of it.
As to the expression, literary executors, I am alone responsible for it. I could not find another at the time, and if by it I have in any way offended you, I humbly ask your pardon.[73]
How the disposition itself can wound you, I cannot see. The work must be done here on the spot. The real work, that you know as well as Tussy does, will mostly have to be done by me. But as Mohr had one daughter living in London, I find it but natural that he should associate her to me in such work as she could do. Had you been living here instead of in Paris, all the three of us would have been jointly appointed, no doubt about that.
But there is another view of the case. According to English law (which we had explained by Sam Moore) the only person living which is the legal representative of Mohr, in England, is Tussy. Or rather the only person who can become his legal representative by taking out letters of administration. This must be done by the next of kin living in England—Tussy; unless she declines and proposes someone else, who also must reside in the United Kingdom. So that legally I too am out of it. For various reasons these letters of administration have to be taken out.
Of the projects Mohr discussed with you at Vevey I was of course utterly ignorant and only regret you did not come over since the 14th March, when we should have known and complied with them as much as possible. But here is how the matter stands with regard to the English translation.(1) We find (from Sam. Moore as well as from Meissner) that we have no right to stop anyone from publishing an un-authorised translation. That right, in the best of cases, lasts but three years after first publication and lapsed finally in 1870. Now there were several people in the field and a well-meaning but poor and un-businesslike publisher, Reeves, the most undesirable man of all, told Radford he had found a translator and was going to publish his translation. There was then no time to lose. We must find someone willing and able to do the work — we could think of no one but Sam. Moore and of Kegan Paul and Co. as publishers. The two entered into correspondence, then Tussy saw Kegan Paul, then I. Nothing is concluded, but very probably we shall come to some agreement. The question is: would you, under the altered circumstances, have undertaken to do the translation and bind yourself to a given time, say 6 months?
As to the History of the International, I am perfectly willing, as far as / a m concerned, that all papers, etc., relating to the International be handed over to you for that purpose. But my plan was to write a full biography of Mohr,[30] and if you take those papers, that falls to the ground. Mohr's life without the International would be a diamond ring with the diamond broken out.
I have said nothing to Tussy about your letter, as I do riot wish to interfere in any way between two sisters. Therefore, if you require any explanations from her, you will please write direct to her. But I think the best thing you could do, is to come over and have the matter mutually explained. You know very well there is on my part no other desire but to consider your wishes as much as possible and in every respect. And I am the same in the case with Tussy. If you wish to have your name associated to ours in the common work, and if you wish to share this work, and means can be found how, I for one shall only be glad ofthat. As it is we shall want your assistance often enough for information, etc., and nothing could throw greater obstacles in our way than fresh unpleasantness between you and Tussy. What we all of us are desirous of seeing carried out, is a befitting monument to the memory of Mohr, the first portion of which will and must be the publication of his posthumous works. Let us then all contribute what we can towards that end.
The only person to whom I have spoken about this matter is Nim and she is quite of the opinion expressed above.
As to our two martyrs,a they seem happy and contented enough, and even afraid of Grévy's putting an end to their prison-bliss on the 14th July.[9] What a fine sentence that on Louise Michel![74] Fortunately nobody knows who will rule France a couple of years hence. A shell between the legs of Alexander III, and all prison doors in Europe and Asia fly open except — the Irish ones.
Now I must conclude. I have to read proof-sheets No. 4 of 3rd editionb' which arrived here on Saturdayc and I have bound myself to return them in 48 hours. Then I have to work at the alterations for 3rd edition (done up to page 404) partly upon an annotated copy,[75]
partly upon the French edition,[59] which must be done quick so as not to give excuse for delay. So no more at present.
Ever yours affectionately,
F. Engels
24. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 29 June[7 6]
Dear Sorge,
My evening's work has been disrupted by callers and this has given me a bit of spare time in which to write to you.
The critique of Henry George, which Marx sent you, is essentially a work of such extraordinary skill and stylistically so much all of a piece, that it would be a pity to tone it down by including the desul-tory marginal comments that appear in English in Marx's copy.a
These will always be to hand in case of need later on. Every word of the letter he sent you was written, as was usually Marx's custom on such occasions, with an eye to the subsequent publication of the text. So you will not be guilty of any indiscretion if you have it printed. If it is to come out in English, I will translate it for you, since the translation of the Manifesto1" has again shown that there seems to be no one over there who can translate our German, at any rate, into literary, grammatical English.[77] This calls for a writer with practice in both languages, practice, what's more, that is not merely confined to the daily press. Translating the Manifesto is awfully difficult; by far the best renderings I have seen are the Russian.[78]
The 3rd edition of Capita? is causing me a tremendous amount of work. We have one copy in which Marx follows the French edition[59]
when indicating the emendations and additions to be made,[75] but all the detailed work remains to be done. I have got as far as 'Accumulation',d but here it is a case of revising almost completely the entire theoretical section. On top of that there is the responsibility. For to some extent the French translation lacks the depth of the German text; Marx would never have written in German in that way. Moreover the publisher keeps pressing me.
Until I finish this there can be no question of my going on to Vol-urne II. There are in existence at least four versions of the beginning, thus often did Marx apply himself to the task, the editing of the definitive work having been interrupted on each occasion by illness. How the arrangement and conclusion of the last, dating from 1878, will agree with the first, which goes back to before 1870, I cannot yet say. ' [7]
Practically everything has been saved from the period up to 1848. Not only virtually all of the mss he and I worked on at the time (in so far as they haven't been eaten by mice), but also the correspondence. Everything after 1849 is also complete, of course, and, from 1862 on, is actually in some sort of order. Also extensive written material on the International, sufficient, I imagine, for a full history, though I have not yet been able to take a closer look at it.
There are also 3 or 4 notebooks of mathematical studies. I once showed your Adolfa an example of Marx's new explanation of differential calculus.[79]
Had it not been for the mass of American and Russian material[80]
(there are over two cubic metres of books of Russian statistics alone), Volume II would have long since been printed. These detailed studies held him up for years. As always, everything had to be brought right up to date and now it has all come to nothing, apart from his excerpts which will, I trust, include many of his customary critical com-mentaries for use as notes to Volume II.
The photographs are hereh; as soon as I can find time to pack them I shall send them to you. But how? BOOK POST precludes any stout packing, no parcel post exists as yet,.and to send a small package like this per parcels agency would cost a mint of money. Perhaps you would let me know how best to go about it.
I have already read five sheets of the final proof of the 3rd edition; the man has promised to send three sheets a week.
Your
F. Engels
I haven't possibly got time to answer little Hepner's many long letters just now. His reports are always of interest to me, intermingled though they are with a great deal of personal gossip and written with the sense of superiority of the newly disembarked. Meanwhile you had better convey my apologies to him.
Schewitsch has sent me a 'dignified' reply and regrets my 'small-mindedness'.b Dignity becomes him. He won't get an answer.
Nor will Most, who is, of course, bound to confirm everything I have said,c which is exactly what has made him so furious. I believe he will find support in sectarian America and sow confusion for a time. But it is precisely in the nature of the American movement that all mistakes must be experienced in practice. If America's energy and vitality were backed by Europe's theoretical clarity, you would get everything fixed up within ten years. But that is, after all, an historical impossibility.
25. Engels to Gabriel Deville. 12 August
122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Citizen Deville,
I have received your letter and your manuscript, for which I thank you.[81] Next week I shall be leaving London for a seaside resort.[82]
There I shall have sufficient leisure to look over your work which will be returned to you as soon as possible.
Your manuscript arrived at an opportune moment. Only yesterday I completed the final editing of the 3rd German edition of Capital," and have undertaken to begin editing the 2nd volume immediately on my return from the seaside. So your work reached me precisely at the moment when I happened to have a short interval of time.
26. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 19 August
I have read the section you sent to Marx a little while ago; it seems to me very clear and very accurate. And, since it comprises the most difficult part of the work, there would appear to be no reason to anti-cipate any misapprehensions in the remaining sections.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
26
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
Eastbourne, 19 August 1883 4 Cavendish Place
My dear Laura,
At last out of London.[82] As soon as I saw my way clear, I sent Percy (last Wednesday") over here to look out for apartments. He did his business well, and found excellent accommodation, not without difficulty. Two doors from the Parade, facing the Pier, fine rooms, no sun more than is wanted, good sea-view, good cooking, the only thing we are sorry for is that it could not be arranged in time for you to go with us. On Friday we arrived here, Pumps, babies and girl, Nim, Jollymeier (who felt a little out of sorts again but has picked up here at once and will soon leave us) and myself. First-class Scotch mist on arrival, fine rain off and on all night, very encouraging! But next day splendid, so that we could take our walks under the trees and show Nim a little of the place. To-day, Sunday, fine morning but becoming foggy, well we must take our chance, but anyhow so far the place looks quite different to what it did in the rainy weather when last here.[83] There has been an immense deal of building, the lodging part of the town has about doubled in size, all the fields towards Beachy Head and a good deal of the slope are built over. Pilsener Beer is flourishing and better even than in London. Nim and Pumps find things cheaper and better here than at home.
Emily Rosher's little avortorf died yesterday, best thing it could do. I wrote to Deville at once announcing arrival of his ms.a At the same time or a little after I got also Sam Moore's translationb — so I shall have plenty to do here, besides working off my colossal arrears of correspondence.
The place is very full, but the style of the people seems to be more 'free and easy' than formerly. Even on Sunday morning the chimney-pot hat plays but a very poor part, and 'athletic' costumes run about pretty free.
Just now the whole party throng in again, awfully thirsty, Jollymeier has to open the Pilsener, and you conceive that it is no use struggling against the difficulties crowding upon me and stopping not only rational but even irrational correspondence. The second bottle has just been opened, the little girl is crawling about my knees, and so I give it up in despair. The whole colony send their kindest regards to you and Paul whose half-term we shall celebrate the day after tomorrow [9] in an extra draft of Pilsener.
Nim wishes you, literally, 'to have a good look-out about her fortune, as she expects it soon to come in'.[84]
And so, dear Laura,
Yours most affectionately,
F. Engels
27. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht,. 21 August
IN BORSDORF NEAR L E I P Z I G "
[Eastbourne,] 21 August 1883
Dear Liebknecht,
Your letter[85] has remained unanswered because of final work on the 3rd edition,a after which I came to stay here at
4 Cavendish Place, Eastbourne, England where I intend to remain until about 12 September.[82]
Mrs Marx died on 2 December 1881, Jenny on 9 January 1883. Both deaths were reported in the Sozialdemokrat}h
The Paris Vorwärts! was a little sheet which is now being accorded more importance than it deserves; the editors were a dilatory lot. Marx's main concern was to keep it on the right lines and from time to time he also wrote polemical articles and reviews attacking the Prussians.c Heine sent Marx some of the advance proofs of the Wintermärchen from Hamburg for publication in the Vorwärts! before the book appeared in Germany.[86]
I actually only set eyes on a few numbers and the little paper did not survive for long, so I cannot let you have any further details.
Marx wrote quite a lot of things for the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung, including a polemical discourse against Heinzen.d
Bebel's letter safely received; will be answered from heree; along with all the other correspondence, have been unable to attend to it because of overwork. Tell Bebel that Schorlemmer, who is here, will be going to Darmstadt shortly and staying there until about the middle of September. If Bebel is visiting those parts before then, Schorlemmer would like him to let him know (Prof. Schorlemmer, Darm-
Stadt is sufficient address) and tell him where Schorlemmer can meet him; in which case he will do his utmost to look him up. Lafargue finished half his time today.[9]
Your
F.E.
28. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 22 August
Dear Citizen,
Please excuse my delay in replying to your letter of 25/6 and your postcard of 30/7.[87] The need to finish in a short time the text of the 3rd German edition of Capital(1)' forced me to suspend all correspondence.
I do not know much about Ahn's method, and the dictionary you mention is entirely unknown to me. In order to learn a language the method I have always followed is this: I do not bother with grammar (except for declensions and conjugations, and pronouns) and I read, with a dictionary, the most difficult classical author I can find. Thus I began Italian with Dante, Petrarch and Ariosto, Spanish with Cervantes and Calderon, Russian with Pushkin. Then I read newspapers, etc. For German, I think the first part of Goethe's Faust might be suitable; it is written, for the most part, in a popular style, and the things which would seem difficult to you would also be difficult, without a commentary, for a German reader.
For the works of Marx, etc., you could approach the offices of the Sozialdemokrat, Hottingen-Zurich, Switzerland; it is the official organ of the German workers' party.
Thank you for the copies of the translation, which reached me in good condition, and also for kindly sending your photograph, in return for which I enclose mine.
Yours with regards,
F. Engels
The normal London address is fine; I am here at the seaside for a few weeks.
1964 Translated from the Italian
29. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 27 August[8 8]
Dear Bernstein,
Herewith money order for £4 for old Becker." I am still hoping that the news — and it wouldn't be the first time — is being exaggerated by his family. But he is, of course, very old, has been through a great deal and, or so I was told by Mme Lafargue, looked considerably older last year in Geneva by comparison with his hearty appearance at The Hague.[89]
I shall not be able to write a great deal today. The post leaves here at one o'clock in the afternoon and here beside me, for proof-reading, lies sheet 19 of Capital* which also has to go off.
Many thanks for your suggestion about Kaler-Reinthal,[90] but I cannot, unfortunately, take advantage of it. With the exception of trifles, all my extra jobs are of a kind that call for my personal attention. And in so far as I could pass anything on, it would have to be to a man who spoke coulant English and was intimately acquainted with London and local conditions, thus being able to save me running errands.
I am staying here until about 12 September,[82] until when the above address holds good; then back to London.
Besides proofs and arrears of correspondence, I must, while here, attend to:
1) Deville's ms., French popularisation of Capital.®:1
2) Ms., part of the English translation,b both of them sorely in need of revision. So you see, no peace here either. Luckily I live right next to the sea and sit besides an open window through which the sea air comes wafting in.
I was very sorry that you didn't come over here. I had a number of things to discuss with you. We have in any case got to resign ourselves to the fact that some of Marx's unpublished works will have to appear abroad0 and you alone could give me practical information or suggestions relating to this; it is, however, something that has to be discussed verbally — by letter it would be endless. But please say nothing about this, otherwise it might arouse false hopes in the people who run the printing works out there; my experience of party presses is such that I would think twice before entrusting a major and important work to any of them.
I shall retain the money order here, it being expressly stated thereon that it is of no use to the recipient. I gave your address, 137 alte Landstraße Riesbach, from memory; if wrong, please put this right at the main post office in Zurich.
My suggestion about the impudent ms. was, as it were, a bad joke.d
So long as the Anti-Socialist Law is in force,[37] and the Sozialdemokrat is the only possible organ, it is imperative not to sow discord among the party merely for the sake of such secondary issues, and that is what would happen if one sought to make a 'question of principle' out of this issue.
It would seem to me that, in the treatment of the 'republic', especially in France, the most important aspect did not emerge clearly enough in the Sozialdemokrat,[91] namely this:
In the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie, the Bonapartist monarchy (the characteristics of which have been expounded by Marx in the Eighteenth Brumaire and by myself in The Housing Question, II, and elsewhere) adopted a role similar to that of the old absolute monarchy in the struggle between feudalism and bourgeoisie. But just as that struggle could not be fought out under the old, absolute monarchy but only under a constitutional one (England, France 1789-92 and 1815-30) so, too, that between bourgeoisie and proletariat can only be fought out in a republic. Inasmuch, then, as the French were helped by favourable conditions and revolutionary antecedents to overthrow Bonaparte and establish a bourgeois republic,[92] they have the advantage over us, who remain stuck in a farrago of semi-feudalism and Bonapartism, of already possessing the form in which the struggle must be fought out and which we must first master for ourselves. Politically they are a whole stage ahead of us. Hence, the inevitable consequence of a monarchist restoration in France would be that the struggle for the restoration of the bourgeois republic would again appear on the agenda; continuance of the republic, on the other hand, means mounting intensification of the direct, un-disguised class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie until a crisis is reached.
Similarly in our case the first, immediate result of the revolution can and must, so far as form is concerned, be nothing other than a bourgeois republic. But in this instance it will be no more than a brief, transitional period since fortunately we do not possess a purely republican bourgeois party. A bourgeois republic with, perhaps, the Party of Progress [9 3] at the helm, will serve us at first to win over the great mass of the workers to revolutionary socialism — which will have been effected in a year or two — and will be conducive to the thorough erosion and self-destruction of all possible intermediate parties but not ours. Only then can we successfully take over.
The great mistake made by the Germans is to imagine the revolution as something that can be achieved overnight. In fact it is a process of development on the part of the masses which takes several years even under conditions that tend to accelerate it. Every revolution that has been achieved overnight has merely ousted a reactionary regime doomed from the outset (1830) or has led directly to the exact opposite of what was aspired to (1848, France).
Yours,
F.E What do you think of this:
'The last so-called red number of the "Rheinische Zeitung"" (third edition) of 19 May 1849, which carried the Neue Rheinische ^eitung'% farewell message by Ferdinand Freiligrath at the top of its front page, was again confiscated by the police here not long ago. A second-hand dealer had bought as waste paper a number of copies of this last farewell issue of the sometime organ of democracy and was selling them at 10 pfennigs a piece. The police put a stop to this by confiscating such of the papers as the dealer still had left. If the confiscation was effected on the grounds that the sheet's wretched pale red print was bound to harm its readers' eyes, the public has cause to thank the police; today, the text would be most unlikely to inflame anyone's feelings.' b
1900 and in full, in Russian, in Marx-Published in English in full for the Engels Archives, Book I, Moscow, 1924 first t l m e
30. Engels to August Bebel. 30 August[94]
IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG [3 4]
Eastbourne, 30 August 1883 4 Cavendish Place
Dear Bebel,
I am taking advantage of a moment's peace to write to you. In London numerous jobs, down here numerous interruptions (three grown-ups and two small children in one room!); on top ofthat proof-readingc and the revision of an English specimen translation[56] as also of a popularised French version of Capital.[61] How's a chap to write letters!
I have corrected up to sheet 21 of the 3rd edition which contains voluminous addenda; by the end of the year the thing will be out. As soon as I am back I shall get down to Volume 2 in real earnest and that is an enormous task. Alongside parts that have been completely finished are others that are merely sketched out, the whole being a brouillona with the exception of perhaps two chapters. Quotations from sources in no kind of order, piles of them jumbled together, collected simply with a view to future selection. Besides that there is the handwriting which certainly cannot be deciphered by anyone but me, and then only with difficulty. ' [7] You ask why I of all people should not have been told how far the thing had got. It is quite simple; had I known, I should have pestered him night and day until it was all finished and printed. And Marx knew that better than anyone else. He knew besides that, if the worst came to the worst, as has now happened, the ms. could be edited by me in the spirit in which he would have done it himself, indeed he told Tussy as much.[95]
As regards the photograph,b the head is quite excellent. The pose is stiff, as in all his photographs; he was a bad 'sitter'. It does not irritate me in any way but, because of the stiffness of the pose, I prefer the smaller one to the larger.
The election in Hamburg [9 6] has also created a great sensation abroad. But then the behaviour of our chaps could not have been more exemplary. Such tenacity, perseverance, flexibility and ready wit, such waggish confidence of winning in the struggle with the greater and lesser miseries of the Germany of today, is unprecedented in recent German history. Especially splendid is the contrast it presents to the corruption, flabbiness and general decay of all other classes of German society. The very extent to which these classes demonstrate their inability to rule brings out in brilliant relief the ruling mission of the German proletariat, its ability to overturn the whole sordid old mess.
The 'jets of cold water' directed by Bismarck on Paris[97] are becoming ridiculous, even in the eyes of the French bourgeois. Even a paper as stupid as the Soir has discovered that nothing more is involved dian the new appropriations in the Reichstag for the military (this time the field artillery).c As for his alliances (he has descended to Serbia, Romania and now Spain of all places[98]), all these are houses built of cards that will be blown down by a puff of wind. If he's lucky he won't need them and if he's unlucky they will land him in the cart. The greater a blackguard a man is, the more he believes in the uprightness of others and that, in the end, is his undoing. It is unlikely to get to that stage with Bismarck so far as his foreign policy is concerned, for the French won't do him the favour of picking a quar-rel. Only the Tsara might try something of the kind out of despera-tion and come to grief in the process. But I hope he will come to grief at home before that.
The manifesto of the Democratic Federation in London " has been issued by some 20-30 little societies which, under various names (always the same people), have been persistently trying to look important for the past 20 years at least and always with the same lack of success. All that is important is that these people have now at last been compelled publicly to proclaim our theory as their own, a theory which, at the time of International, seemed to them to have been imposed upon them from outside, and further that a number of young people have lately emerged from amongst the bourgeoisie who, to the shame, be it said, of the English workers, understand these things better and embrace them more enthusiastically than do the workers. For even in the Democratic Federation the workers have accepted the new programme for the most part no more than reluc-tantly and outwardly. Hyndman, the head of the Democratic Federation, is an ex-Conservative, an ambitious man, hopelessly jingoistic but not stupid. He behaved pretty shabbily b towards Marx (to whom he had been introduced by Rudolf Meyer), and for that reason has been personally ignored by us.[100] On no account whatever allow yourself to be bamboozled into believing that a real proletarian movement is afoot here. I know that this is what Liebknecht would have himself and the rest of the world believe, but it is not so. The elements presently active might become important, now that they have accepted our theoretical programme and thus acquired a basis, but only if a spontaneous movement broke out amongst the workers here and they succeeded in gaining control of it. Until then they will continue to be so many isolated individuals with, behind them, an omnium-gatherum of muddle-headed sects, the remnants of the great movement of the forties, ' ° ' but nothing more. A really universal labour movement will come about here — barring the unexpected — only when the workers become sensible of the fact that England's world monopoly has been broken. Participation in the domination of the world market was and is the economic basis of the English workers' political nullity. As the appendage of the bourgeois in the economic exploitation of this monopoly, though nevertheless participating in the advantages that accrue from the said exploitation, they are, in the nature of things, a political appendage of the 'Great Liberal Party' which, for its part, courts them in minor matters, acknowledges TRADES UNIONS and STRIKES as legitimate factors, has abandoned the struggle for an unlimited working day, and enfranchised most of the better paid workers. ' °[2] But once America and the combined competition of the other industrial nations have made a sizeable breach in this monopoly (imminent in the case of iron, less so, unfortunately, in that of cotton), just wait and see what happens here.
I asked Liebknecht to tell you(1) that, if you happened to be in the neighbourhood of Darmstadt between now and 12 September, you should advise Schorlemmer who is staying there, so that he can look you up somewhere in that region. It is probably too late now. Regards to Liebknecht.
Your
F. E.
31. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 18 September[1 0 3]
Dear Mr Kautsky,
As regards the Geiser business, I do not believe the time has yet come for me to intervene.[104] The chaps must first compromise themselves a bit more in the eyes of the public. The paltry little flysheet and the failure of the motion on the right to work are not enough; they must express themselves in yet stronger terms if we are to get a proper hold On them and if they are not to lie their way out by pleading false excuses. Meanwhile it would be most helpful if you would gather together material in this connection, for the moment will come when we shall have to have a go at these gentlemen. There's no immediate hurry.a Bebel and the Sozialdemokrat, as you say yourself, have got the masses behind them, and there is, after all, an antidote to hand. That you have a great deal of this sort ofthing to put up with in that Swabian hole, I can well believe, considering that Stuckertb and Munich are the worst places in Germany. And then, I definitely have not got the time to become embroiled in a dispute that would demand a great deal of toil and trouble. If it has got to be — well and good. I return the flysheet herewith.
Lack of time precludes my engaging in further detailed discussion of the articles on marriage.[105] In any case, primitive hetaerism is so remote in time and has been so much overlaid by later developments, whether progressive or otherwise, that nowadays we can nowhere expect to find examples in their pristine form. But all subsequent forms lead back to those primitive origins. Of this much I am certain,— until you have completely dropped the element of jealousy as a deter-mining social factor (in primitive times), it will not be possible to give a correct account of the way things have developed.
Generally speaking, in the case of all those scientific researches which embrace so wide a field and such a mass of material, nothing can really be achieved except by dint of many years of study. Individual aspects that are both new and accurate — and these are, of course, to be found in your articles — present themselves more readily; but to survey the whole and to order it anew is something that can only be done after it has been fully explored. Otherwise there would be many more books like Capital. So I am glad to see that you have turned to themes — for immediate literary treatment — such as early biblical historyd and colonisation,[01] which make it possible to achieve something without so exhaustive and detailed a study, and yet at the same time strike a topical note. I liked the colonisation article very much. Unfortunately almost all the material you've got is German which, as usual, is toned down and fails to present either the lurid hues of tropical colonisation or its most recent mode. The latter is colonisation, directly and wittingly carried out in the interest of stock-market manipulations, as now by France in Tunisia and Tongking.[65] Of this there is a new and striking instance in the South Seas slave trade; that trade was the immediate purpose of the attempted annexation of New Guinea, etc., by Queensland. Almost on the same day as the expedition set out to annex New Guinea, a Queensland vessel, the Fanny, left for the same island and others further east in order to seize LABOUR, returning, however, without LABOUR but with wounded as well as other unpleasant signs of an encounter.[106] The Daily Mews reports this and, in a leading article,(1) remarks that the British can hardly censure the French for such practices while doing the same thing themselves! (Beginning of September.)
Last week, at the TRADES UNIONS CONGRESS sitting at Nottingham, Adam Weiler's proposal to press for international factory legislation was thrown out by 26 votes to 2 on the motion of the 'Labour' parlia-mentarian Broadhurst.[107] So much for Liebknecht's much-vaunted
TRADES UNIONS! ' ° 8
Why doesn't Fritz Denhardt write for the Meue £eit any more? [109]
He had a very nice cheery style. The journal itself, of course, has to content with appalling difficulties: the censorship it has to impose upon itself is a thousand times worse than the old, official censorship used to be. You still have some pretty odd contributors and you yourself must often enough long for better ones. At all events, this business has for you the advantage of enabling you at the same time to pursue your scientific studies and let them come to gradual frui-tion.
Incidentally, Java provides proof of the fact that nowhere and at no time does a population increase so rapidly as under a not unduly oppressive system of bondage: 1755 — 2 mill.; 1826 — 5'/2 mill.; 1850 — 9 mill.; 1878 — 19 mill.; — an almost tenfold increase in 125 years — the only example of anything like Malthusian growth. Were they to send the Dutch blood-suckers packing the population would become fairly stable.
Adler turned up just as I was off to the seaside and likewise on my return; he is a man of some promise. He saw much here that might be of use to him.[110]
32. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 19 September
I yesterday received a money order from Stuttgart for £ 6 3/ - for the photographs," but there was no accompanying letter. WilJ you ask Dietz to be so kind as to drop me a note informing me what name (Christian name) and address (in Stuttgart) he gave at the post office on taking out the order? The post office here is very pedantic in such matters, and if the particulars I give differ in the slightest respect I shall not get the money.
The 2nd volume of Capital will provide me with work and to spare. The bulk of the ms. dates back to before 1868 and is in. places no more than a brouillon}' ' a The second book will greatly disappoint the vulgar socialists, it contains virtually nothing but rigorously scientific, very minute examinations of things that take place within the capitalist class itself, and nothing at all out of which to fabricate catch-words and orations.
Pumps has already got two offspring. Tussy Marx has taken rooms near the British Museum. Lenchen is keeping house for me.
Kindest regards.
Yours,
F. E.
first time
32
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 19 September 1883
My dear Laura,
At last returned from Eastbourne,[82] where correspondence was rendered difficult and almost impossible by circumstances. When proof-sheetsb arrived — 3 times a week — my company left me to my work, but on the silent understanding that I was not to exact anything further — and how indeed could I have asked for peace and quietness in the one sitting room allotted to us all, especially when the thirst for Pilsener drove them in at certain times of the day?
I was besides busy with Sam Moore's specimen translation[3] the greater part of which is very good and lively; the beginning — rather a difficult chaptera — wanted a deal of'look after', on account of his not having been exact enough in rendering the terminology, but that could be easily settled. I am certain from what I have seen that he will do the job well.
I also began revising Deville's pamphlet,[81] it requires more work, especially in the beginning where great precision is necessary, but is wanting here and there. However I shall have no difficulty in setting that right, only it will take a week or a fortnight. I shall set to work seriously to-morrow. As far as I have gone, I am much pleased with his work, he has well understood everything (except small details) and it is written in a more lively style than I thought it would be.
As soon as that is shaken off I begin with the 2nd volume [of] Kapital.
I hope you received my post-card ' ' ' with the information you had asked me for. It was sent the day after I received your letter.
We came back last Friday,b Pumps and Percy stayed here over Sunday, their house not being in order. Since then we had a thunder-storm and fearful rain in parts of London which flooded their back drawing-room. Otherwise they are flourishing. The little boy is getting on wonderfully well, he was five months yesterday, and is extremely intelligent for his age.
Nim declares she must reduce her allowance of beer. She thinks she is getting too fat with it.
This morning Lopatin walks in, his adventures have ripened him considerably. ' ' [2] He will be here again directly and have dinner with us. He says he saw Paul lately and found him well and content, all things considered.[9]
Tussy I have not seen yet, I believe she is not in town, I wrote her a line but she did not turn up on Sunday. As soon as Nim can get off she'll call on her.
33. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 3 October
Of my little pamphlet Entwicklung etc. two editions are already sold, the third is in the press.[25] That shows anyhow that it is not too difficult for the mass of the working people in Germany.
When this letter arrives, Paul will have 'done' [2]/[3]rds of his time — I hope he will keep his pluck up for the two last and most trying months.
Of the 3rd edition [of] Kapital* I have read proofs up to page 448, so if they go on at this rate, the whole will be completed by December. I am sorry Mohr has not lived to see how well this time the thing is done: no delay, no trouble with the printers, no trifling complaint but is at once set right, and excellent proofs with very few mistakes. Leipzig ' ' [3] seems at last, and at least in this one respect of printing, to become 'ein klein Paris'} High time it was.
So now I conclude this budget of miscellaneous news in order to set a few little jobs right before Lopatin drops in again. Kind regards for0
Paul and a hearty kiss for yourself from
Yours affectionately,
Le général pour rire d
33
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 3 October 1883
My dear Laura,
Herewith cheque for £14.- of which £4.- are your l/[3] share of £12.-sent by Meissner on account of 2nd edition [of] Kapital,"
£4.- for Tussy and £4.- for Longuets children, which Tussy has banked for the present until a little more money accrues to them, when we can consider, along with you, what is to be done in their interest.
Jollymeier left here yesterday, highly enchanted with Paris. He says you will come over at Christmas — hope it will turn out true!
Today I sent to you, registered, pages 1-123 of Deville's ms.[81]
I cannot find his letter with his address. The defect of the thing is that many parts of it have been done rather too hurriedly. This is princi-pally the case with the descriptive portions (especially manufacture and grande industrie"). The points do not at all come out as they ought to do. It is not sufficient to express them, as much as possible, in Marx's own words; these cannot be torn from the context without giving rise to misinterpretation or leaving many things in comparative obscu-rity. Deville would do well to revise these two chapters throughout and to complete them by some of the exemplifications of the original without which they have become very abstract and to working-men-readers obscure. In the theoretical parts there are also many slight inaccuracies (some too, as his definition of marchandise^ very serious) and des choses faites à la hâte,b but these it was mostly not very difficult to set more or less right. Then many portions, of interest and importance for theoretical economic science, but without immediate portée d on the question between capital and labour, might be omitted. One or two I have indicated.
Now then I close. Though a good deal better I am ordered to lie down as much as possible quietly for a few days longer and so with kind regards to the prisoners [9] and sincere love from Nim and myself remain
Ever yours affectionately,
F. Engels
34. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 15 October
34
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 15 October 1883
My dear Laura,
My last letter was awfully rough. But I was not allowed to sit long at the desk, and had to write — as you will allow — to Deville first.[39]
So I could only say a few words to you and these must have looked very unkind indeed. Pardon me.
Well, I have made up my mind d'en finir avec cette sacrée maladie chronique.* Since last Wednesday nighta I have stayed in bed, in order to do away with any excuse for the constant cause of all my relapses, want of rest and temptation for moving about. To-day I feel quite well, and inclined for a dance. But that is just the time when absolute rest is most needed, and therefore I shall not stir out of bed until bed will do me more harm than good. If nothing unexpected occurs, I think I shall be en pleine guérisonb before the week is out. So now, that will satisfy you I hope as far as my health is concerned.
I perfectly understand what Jollymeier meant by his letter to you. Gumpert had given him the note of warning — awfully exaggerated, though, for my case — but Gumpert could not interfere in my treatment by another doctor. Still I think Jollymeier might have found another way to save Gumpert's scruples as to medical étiquette without frighteningjo«. As it is, I have used your letter to stir up my doctors a bit, and with success. Ich hab' ihnen Beine gemacht? and energetic treatment is now all the rage.
But enough of that. All I am sorry for, and very sorry, is that I res-ponded in such an unkind way to your letter and to the kind feeling which had dictated it. It has weighed on my mind all the time, and yet I would not again write to you until I could indicate a decided improvement and good reasons for an approaching final cure.
Fortin has written, he wants a prefaced and asks about 20 questions which it would take a year to answer thoroughly. Tussy was here when his letter came, I read it to her and I wish you could have heard us laugh at that never ending series of inquiries, each requiring a volume to answer it completely. I shall ask him to send me the manuscript" and put off the rest for better times.
Read to-day proof-sheeta up to page 600. Tussy has promised to look up the American reports for Paul. ' ' [4]
It is getting post-time and dinner-time too. But before concluding: Deville writes to say he has no time to recast the 3 chapters indicated by me.[8] ' Please do, you and Paul, as much as you can, to get him to revise them as much as possible. Such as they are, they are not intelli-gible but to those who know the original. He says the publisher will give no time. But the whole cannot be printed at once!! A fortnight will do it and it will be a wonderful improvement.
Kind regards to the prisonerb now soon to be free.
A kiss from Nim and from your affectionate
F. Engels
35. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 8 November
Dear Bernstein,
I have been keeping to my bed for the past few weeks in order to rid myself of a chronic ailment, mild in itself but tiresome and long neglected; I shall be up again in a few days. Hence my silence. Please accept my apologies and also convey them to Kautsky; I don't know whether he is still in Stuckert.d The article on the right to work was very good and very much à propos* Kautsky had already bombarded me about the same subjecta
and I shall be perfectly willing as soon as it becomes necessary, but I think one should first let these gentlemen compromise themselves a little more; they ought first to formulate more precisely what they mean by it; one must never stop people from giving 'complete and full' expression to their nonsense; only then does one get something really tangible. I hope your article will commit the chaps to this course.
If the Germans in Paris have not had their eyes opened to Malon & Co. now, there's no helping them. Their open alliance with the traitors of the English labour movement, the official representatives of the
TRADES UNIONS, has earned them the applause of the entire English bourgeois press from The Times and The Daily News to The Standard.[115] A good thing that Guesde and Lafargue were doing time,b
thereby enabling this magnificent performance to be put on with no interruptions whatever!
Apropos. Do you know a Dr Moritzc Quarck (sic!) In Rudolstadt? This man, with whom I am totally unfamiliar, has referred me to a pamphlet,d with which I am equally unfamiliar, attacking one Fleischmannr with whom I am even less familiar, and wants to translate The Poverty of Philosophy into German/ I have my misgivings.
Well, let me know sometime soon what is going on in the world. I have become so stupid, lolling about in bed, that I can no longer marshal my thoughts.
Yours,
F. E.
36. Engels to Vera Zasulich. 13 November
36
ENGELS TO VERA ZASULICH
IN GENEVA
London, 13 November 1883 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Citizen,
I am not really in a position to answer the questions you have been so good as to put to me. ' ' [6] The publication of the second volume of Capital^ in the original text, continues to be delayed. Up till now I have had to confine my attention mainly to the 3rd edition of the first volume."
So far I have heard nothing at all from St Petersburg in regard to a Russian translation of the 2nd volume. Nor, for that matter, do I believe that, as things are now, there could be any question of publishing a work of this kind in the Russian capital; no doubt they would first want to take a look at the German text.
On the other hand, the political situation in Russia is now so tense that a crisis might supervene any day. I even think it probable that the press will be free in Russia before it becomes so in Germany. And in that case the translator of the first volume, TepMaHT. Aona-THHT),b could, with some reason, claim the right to translate the second.1 1?
I do not, therefore, believe that the time is yet ripe for an attempt to arrive at a final decision on this matter, but must thank you sincerely for your kind offer which I shall bear in mind. Perhaps we shall be able to see things more clearly in a month or two, and then we can renew our discussion on the subject.
It pleases me very much to hear that it is you who have undertaken to translate my Entwicklung etc.c; I look forward eagerly to seeing your work and fully appreciate the honour you have done me.
I am, my dear and courageous citizen,
To Citizen Vera Zasulich
Yours ever,
F. Engels
37. Engels to Max Quarck. 13 November
Dear Sir,
I have kept you waiting a long time for an answer.(1) Firstly because I had to keep to my bed on account of a mild but tedious indisposi-tion and, secondly, because you are not the first to have approached me about the matter in question. Hence, before I could reply to you, I had to make further inquiries.
The result is that Mr Eduard Bernstein of Zurich has now definitely expressed his intention of translating The Poverty etc. into German and has enlisted my support. ' ' [8] This I cannot possibly refuse, since he was the first to speak to me about the matter, his qualifications for the task are known to me, and immediate printing in Zurich is assured, should it become apparent that publication in Germany itself might meet with difficulties.
Under the circumstances, and in the knowledge that neither I nor anyone else is legally empowered to prevent you or others from publishing a translation of that work, I have nothing further to say other than to express my thanks to you for having thought fit to approach me in the first place.
I remain,
Yours very truly,
F. Engels
38. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 13 November
Dear Bernstein,
Encl. for Vera Zasulich.a
As to Quarck,b you have taken a load off my mind. ' ' [9] I have written telling him that you were the first to apply and that you would be translating The Poverty etc. ' ' [8] The man has thus been disposed of. His pamphlet0 is 'Quarck'.d Marx would wring my neck were I to agree to his being translated by this boastful Hohenzollern-wor-shipper and conservative state socialist.
But it behoves us to make a proper job of it. Nothing pedestrian; the thing is by no means so easy. You might, if you have got as far, send me the ms. of the first sheet; that would give us an opportunity to agree upon the whole modus operandi.
I have not been sent Plekhanov's pamphlet[6]; only the Manifesto and Wage Labour and Capital} From this I learn that it has appeared in a German edition.[120] Why has no one deigned to send me and Marx's heirs a copy?
Nor have I ever received a copy of the new edition of the Manifesto (German).a Nor yet of the 3rd edition oï Entwicklung^ And I have never heard a word of what became of'The Mark', which had been trimmed to size expressly for a separate edition. ' [2] ' This, of course, only happens to one when 'easy-going' Germans are involved.
Of the portraits of me in existence there is only one that you have got; I don't imagine that the man (in Brighton) would quote a cheap price for prints in bulk, but I shall do what I can. So you see, / bear no grudge against your office,b but their worships could well be a little less touchy about a bad joke, especially since they devote a full half column of every number to that kind of thing.
Beware of the Droit à la paresse.[1][2] c Parts of it were too much even for the French and it was much exploited by Malon and Brousse at Lafargue's expense. You must certainly see to it that the wailers[123]
are not provided with an easy excuse just now; even friend Bebel is still somewhat Germanic in this respect. Which reminds me of the poem about the 'arse'. If the author is responsible for all the heroic deeds enumerated therein, he is entitled to celebrate them in song. Besides, I am speaking of the sex organs, and it is difficult for me to enter into discussion with people who include their bottoms under that heading.
It certainly must have been hard for our friend Lavrov to have set his hand to a document saying that he and his Russians 'had definitively broken with their anarchist traditions'.[124] Not that he set much store by them, but all the same there was about them something at-tractively 'Russian'. Besides, he is a thoroughly honest old fellow who is, however, invariably the hen that hatches out ducks' eggs in the form of 'Russian youth' and watches aghast as the ducklings set out across the HORRIBLE water. This has happened to him umpteen times.
Kautsky's visit ' [2 5] will give me much pleasure; I trust I shall be up to the mark again by then.
Yours,
F.E.
39. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 30 November
Dear Old Man,
I can't tell you how glad I was to see your own handwriting again. Nowhere had I been able to learn anything definite about how you were getting on, and am now glad to know that you are at least to some extent back on your feet again.
I, too, have been in bed for a good month now, in order to rid myself of a mild but most tiresome and prolonged ailment, and can only write very briefly since any position but the horizontal is forbidden me. But no doubt I, too, will soon be up again and able to tackle the large accumulation of work.
As soon as I can resume the task of putting Marx's papers in order, I shall look out the things you want,[126] but everything is still in the utmost disorder since I have to attend to everything myself. Mme Lafargue has been living in Paris for a year or more now, and the youngest sister" has furnished a couple of rooms nearby — nearby being half an hour's walk from here, and since it is I alone who must decide what is important and what is not among the vast mass of papers, etc., it is understandable that, considering her many literary activities, she should leave the sorting out to me.
I, too, hope that I shall see you again, my old comrade-in-arms, somewhere some day — who knows whether it might not be, as once before, at Durlach and Vöhrenbach in mid-campaign ' [2 7]? How won-derful that would be! And, after all, the present swindle can't go on for very much longer, provided Mr Bismarck does not again hold up or temporarily obstruct revolutionary developments by unleashing a general war, as is clearly his intention.
You will be getting from the post office a money order for £5 sterling.
But now I must lie down flat on my back again. Goodbye, old man. See that you get fit again, and write sometimes to your old, trusty
F. Engels
40. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 1 December[2 8]
Dear Kautsky,
What can be the matter? Not a sign of you either at Tussy's or at my house!
Yours,
F.E.
time
41. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 13 December
My dear Laura,
I did not intend to write to you until I should be able to inform you that I was 'up and doing' again. To-day it is eight weeks that I went to bed for good (or rather bad) and although I feel considerably better, and keep in bed more for safety's sake than anything else, I am still far from able to use my legs as I ought to. These poor 'lower ex-tremities' to use the language of respectability, are woefully shrunk, and what is quite as bad, have left scarcely anything 'behind them'. The worst is I am quite at ease only when laid flat on my back and writing has to be done in a constrained position and soon becomes a torture, so this must excuse my short and unfrequent letters.
Paul's article in Progress* I read with much pleasure, it hits more than one nail on the head. Let us hope the 'Blé' will come out soon after the period of étrennes,h ' ' [4] and be followed soon by that novelc
which I am most anxious to see. Paul in Balzac's slippers it will be good! By the bye I have been reading scarcely anything but Balzac while laid up and enjoyed the grand old fellow thoroughly. There is the history of France from 1815 to 1848, far more than in all the Vaulabelles, Gapefigues, Louis Blancs and tutti quanti.d And what boldness! What a revolutionary dialectic in his poetical justice!
But alas, we always drop back from the blooming field of romance into the dreary sick-bed of reality. This bids fair to be a poor Christmas! In the best of cases I may be allowed to spend it on the first floor, with order to go to my bedroom when one ought to begin to enjoy oneself! And no tipple, or at all events wine to be taken by the spoon-ful, as medicine! Well it can't be helped.
Percy is now partner of 'Garman and Rosher, Chartered Accoun-tants' Walbrook House, E. C. Hope he will prosper. His father has at last forked out the needful and set him up though with the sourest face and in the unpleasantest way possible.
Tussy has got neuralgia again, she will call here to-night, but only after this letter has gone. The Jutas (he, she,e and Willa) arrived here last week, so Tussy will have plenty on her hands.
Kapital, 3rd editionf now fully printed, will be issued very soon; as soon as we get copies we shall send you one.
Pumps and Percy were in Manchester last week, say Jollymeier is not quite well yet. When we are all on our legs again, we must have a continuation of last summer's sprees, and you must then bring Paul too, unless he is clever enough to get himself locked up again. In the meantime mille saluts to him and to you too from
Your affectionate
F. Engels
42. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 22 December[2 4]
If you have still got The Labour Standard, will you please send it to Lafargue straight away; he gave Shipton's remarks a lambasting in the Cri du Peuple, and wants to have the original as the thing is creating a furore.[129] I wouldn't be able to get hold of another copy before Monday, not to say Thursday[3] (and perhaps not even then).
Have been up again since Saturday[15] but still very wobbly. You gave von der Mark his deserts all right! The fool imagines people should take account of what he understands by 'State'! b° Just as Rodbertus criticised Marx for supposing capital to be real capital, rather than Rodbertus' 'notion of capital'.[131] German to the core.
Kautsky back?
Regards, yours,
F.E.
First published, in Russian, in Marx-Printed according to the original Engels Archives, Book I, Moscow, 1924 , , , Published in English for the first time 1884
43
Endnotes
[11] In his letter of 17 March 1883, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, on behalf of the Dutch Socialist Workers' Party, asked Engels to 'pass on our homage and grateful acknowledgement, to the Marx family and to all those who join us in mourning at the grave of the master'. Nieuwenhuis also informed Engels that he planned to translate his work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific into Dutch, which he actually did in 1886. Nieuwenhuis further enquired about Engels' plan with regard to Volume II of Marx's Capital, further study of the English labour movement after 1845 and the reissue of Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England.— 6
[13] The London monthly The Republican carried a short obituary entitled 'Karl Marx' in its issue of April 1883 containing a reference to the November issue of 1882 which had published a biography and photo of Marx.— 7
[14] In his letter of reply to Engels of 16 April 1883, Eduard Bernstein confirmed that the wood block of Marx's portrait was in the possession of the editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat.— 7
[18] This letter is the reply to the letter by the editor of The Nineteenth Century, Thomas James Knowles, of 7 April 1883 in which the latter requested Engels to send him a short resume in English of Volume I of Marx's Capital for an article his journal was planning to publish on the subject.— 8
[19] This letter was written by Engels in reply to that by Philipp Van Patten of 2 April 1883. In it the latter informed Engels that at a meeting dedicated to Marx's memory Johann Most' and his supporters had claimed Most had been on intimate terms with Marx, that he had helped to popularise Capital in Germany and his propaganda work had enjoyed Marx's support. Engels' letter and an excerpt from that by Van Patten were published in German in Engels' article 'On the Death of Karl Marx' carried by Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 21 of 17 May 1883 (see present edition, Vol. 24). Engels made several changes in the German text of his letter the most important of which are given in the footnotes. This letter was first published in English in an abridged form in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895, Martin Lawrence, London, 1934, and in full in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A Selection, International Publishers, New York, 1953.—9
[20] The reference is to the disruptive activities in the International of Mikhail Bakunin and his supporters. In the autumn of 1868 in Geneva they founded the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, an organisation with its own programme and rules that contradicted those of the International (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 207-11). Following the refusal by the General Council of the International Working Men's Association to admit the Alliance to the International, in 1869 Bakunin, in violation of the promise he had given to disband his organisation, secretly introduced the Alliance into the International with the aim of seizing its leadership. Posing as sections of the International, sections of the Alliance publicised their anarchist programme, claiming it was the programme of the International. In November 1871, the Bakuninists' congress in Sonvillier, Switzerland, called for a revision of the International's Rules, notably the articles on the importance of the political struggle by the working class and its party.— 10, 108
[22] In his reply of 18 April 1883 to Engels' letter of 17 April (see this volume, pp. 8-9), Thomas James Knowles wrote that he was intending to include in the journal The Nineteenth Century the English translation of Engels' Synopsis of Volume One of 'Capital' by Karl Marx (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 263-308) complete with the author's name. Knowles intended to publish in the same issue an article about Marx written by Maltman Barry, who had been a member of the International.—12
[23] In mid-November 1850 Engels joined the Manchester branch of the German tex-tiles firm Ermen & Engels. The German side of the enterprise was run by Fr. Engels (Senior) with the assistance of Anthony Ermen. The firm's office was in Barmen. Following the death of his father in 1860, Engels received £ 10,000 from his brothers as compensation for renouncing his rights to the factory in Engelskirchen, which bolstered his financial and legal status in the Manchester firm. Engels was a co-owner of the Manchester firm of Ermen & Engels for five years between June 1864 and June 1869. At the end of this period he left the firm to con-centrate on party, academic and journalistic work.— 12
[26] The article by Engels which is referred to in this letter was published in Der Sozialdemokrat, Nos. 19 and 21, 3 and 17 May 1883, under the heading 'On the Death of Karl Marx' (see present edition, Vol. 24). It was written in reply to the articles about Marx and Engels by Brousse, a Possibilist leader (see Note 237), which had been carried by Le Prolétaire, Nos. 234 and 237, 24 March and 14 April 1883.—12
[29] The trip was planned for the spring of 1884 with the aim of collecting funds from the workers to finance the election campaign for the Reichstag in the autumn of that year. However, Wilhelm Liebknecht was not able to go to the United States until the autumn of 1886, and with a different aim in mind (see Note 600).—14,
[32] When he learned that Engels' pamphlet Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (present edition, Vol. 24; see also Note 25) was about to appear, Sorge wrote on 19 March 1883 that he could request Otto Weydemeyer to translate it into English and have it published in the United States. The publication failed to materialise.—
[33] Eduard Bernstein was returning to Switzerland from Copenhagen where he had been a delegate to the congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (see Note 15).—15
[35] Engels was unable to carry out these plans due to the enormous demands made on him by the preparation for the press of volumes I and II oiCapital and the publication of translations of Marx's and his own works. At the same time, he was working on his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (see Note 174).—17
[36] On 17 March 1883, August Bebel informed Engels that at the forthcoming congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany in Copenhagen (see Note 15) he intended to put up for discussion the question of the party erecting a monument to Marx. It seems that the stance taken by Marx's family, about which Engels informed Bebel in this letter, long remained an obstacle to the erection of a monument in Highgate Cemetery where Marx was buried. In 1954 the Marx grave was moved to a better place in the cemetery. Lawrence Bradshaw was commissioned by the Communist Party of Great Britain to sculpt a bronze head of Marx, and the monument which incorporated it was unveiled in 1956 by Harry Pollit, then General Secretary of the British Communist Party.— 17
[38] The materials used by the prosecution in the trial of Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel and Adolf Hepner for high treason in Leipzig in March 1872 included the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx and Engels. It was carried by the book Leipziger Hochverrathsprozess. Ausführlicher Bericht über die Verhandlungen des Schwurge-richts zu Leipzig in dem Prozeß gegen Liebknecht, Bebet und Hepner wegen Vorbereitung zum Hochverrath vom 11-26. März 1872, Leipzig, 1872, pp. 97-119.— 18
[40] The reference is to Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England. From Personal Observation and Authentic Sources (see present edition, Vol. 4) which was put out in early 1845 by Otto Wigand's publishing house in Leipzig. In 1872-73 Engels discussed with Liebknecht the plan for a second edition of his book since the latter was planning to publish it in a socio-political literature series with the participation of the editorial board of Der Volksstaat (see present edition, Vol. 44, pp. 375, 477). It is clear from the letters which Wilhelm Liebknecht and Adolf Hepner wrote to Engels in early 1873 that they helped to sort out Engels' legal relations with the Leipzig publishing house. However, this matter was not clarified for the next 12 years (see Engels' letter of 19 January 1885 to August Bebel, this volume, p. 253). The second authorised edition of The Condition of the Working-Class in England was not published until 1892 by Dietz.—19, 248, 251, 253, 263
[41] 4 ' A short quote from this letter was first published in English in: R. H. Dominick III, Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Founding of the German Social Democratic Party, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1982.—20
[42] On 6June 1879 Wilhelm Bracke wrote to Engels, T admire Bebel; he is the only one among us with the skills for life in parliament.'—20
[43] August Bebel failed to obtain election to the Reichstag at the 1881 poll. In April 1883 Social Democrats in Hamburg nominated Bebel as a candidate at the addi-tional elections being held then. On 2 May 1883 Bebel wrote to Engels that, given the relatively poor effect of campaigning and particularly parliamentary work against the background of the Anti-Socialist Law, he had requested the voters in Hamburg not to nominate him as a candidate. However, this letter did not arrive until after he had been elected to the Reichstag on 29 June.— 20
[44] The half-and-halfs — representatives of the Right wing of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany grouped at that time around Wilhelm Bios and Bruno Geiser. The decision of the Copenhagen Congress (see Note 15) of Social-Democratic candidates nominated for the elections to the Reichstag was directed against them. It stated that the candidates should fully endorse the party programme, observe party discipline and help implement party decisions (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 17, 19 April 1883).—21
[45] When the question of the merger of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Eisenachers) and the Lassallean General Association of German Workers was being discussed in the early 1870s, Marx and Engels considered this step to be premature. They believed that joint political activity 'against the common foe' should precede the establishment of a united party and the elaboration of its programme (see K. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, F. Engels to A. Bebel, 18-28 March 1875, present edition, Vol. 24, p. 78). At the Gotha Unity Congress (22-27 May 1875) the Lassallean Wilhelm Hasenclever was elected a co-chairman of the party Executive Committee, and in June 1875 Wilhelm Hasselmann joined the board of the party-formed by decision of the Congress.— 21
[46] On 2 May 1883, Bebel wrote to Engels that 'Liebknecht, instead of showing the toughness [against Right-wing and the half-and-half members of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany] he ought, is doing his utmost to blur and hush up the conflicts. He has the half-and-halfs for protection.' On the half-and-halfs, see Note 44.— 21
[47] The reference is to Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche's and Louis Viereck's journey around the USA from February to May 1881 on an assignment for the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. The purpose of the journey was to engage in propaganda work and collect money for the election campaign to the Reichstag. The elections were due to take place that autumn. On Wilhelm Liebknecht's and August Bebel's trip to the USA planned for 1884, see Note 2 9 . - 2 2 , 80
[48] In the latter half of April and early May 1883 the Reichstag discussed a bill on workers' health insurance and one providing for changes in trade regulations; the two bills were part of Bismarck's so-called social reform (see Note 312). On 2 May 1883 Bebel informed Engels that some of the Social-Democratic deputies — including Moritz Rittingshausen and Max Kayser — had intended to vote in favour of these bills. However, they had submitted to party discipline and voted against them along with the remainder of the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag on 31 May and 2 June 1883, respectively.— 22
[50] Wilhelm Bios was expelled from Hamburg in late 1880 in connection with the introduction of a so-called local state of siege (see Note 67) in some places in Germany. His letter to Engels from Bremen of 4 February 1881 showed that he was disturbed at the reaction which had ensued and was in a liquidationist mood, which was man-ifested in particular by his proposal to dissolve the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany.— 23
[52] This letter by Engels is his reply to the Italian economist Achille Loria whose article 'Karl Marx' had been carried by the journal Nuova antologia di scienze, lettere ed arti, ser. 2, Vol. 38, fas. 7, Rome, 1883, pp. 509-42. Engels' letter was published in German by Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 21,17 May 1883 in the article 'On the Death of Karl Marx' (see present edition, Vol. 24). For a critique of Loria's article, see also Engels' Preface to Volume III oîCapital (present edition, Vol. 37).— 24
[53] Engels is referring to Loria's quotation in his article 'Karl Marx' of the expression Alphonse de Lamartine used with regard to Proudhon in his work Histoire de la revolution de 1848, Brussels, 1849, Vol. 1, Book VII, Ch. 5 . - 2 4
[54] economy which emerged in the last third of the 19th century in response to the growth of the workers' movement and the spread within it of the ideas of scientific socialism. They preached bourgeois reformism at universities, passing it off as socialism. They alleged that the state, specifically the German Empire, was above all classes and could help achieve improvements in the condition of the working class by way of social reforms.—24, 138, 184, 226, 348, 385, 390, 417
[55] A fragment from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895, Martin Lawrence, London, 1934.— 25, 98
[57] Engels is referring to the extracts from statistical reports and specialised studies of the various forms of land ownership and the history of the village commune in Russia which Marx wrote down in the 1870s. He intended to use this material for the section on ground rent in Book III of Capital. However, this plan did not materialise (see Engels' Preface to Volume III of Capital, present edition, Vol. 37).— 29,
[58] The reference is to Marx's economic manuscripts: 1) Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft of 1857-58), and 2) the Manuscripts of 1861-63, which Marx entitled A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (see present edition, Vols. 28-29 and 30-34).—29
[60] The reference is to Marx's and Engels' joint work on the manuscript of The German Ideology and to Engels' work The True Socialists (see present edition, Vol. 5) between 1845 and 1847. Not long before his death Engels dictated to Eduard Bernstein a list of manuscripts from his own and Marx's literary legacy and of other materials stored in his archives. The list contained the following note, '... manuscript of The German Ideology' ('Stirner, 1845/46, Moor and I', 'Feuerbach and Bauer, 1846/47, Moor and I', 'True Socialism, 1847, Moor and I').— 31
[62] The surviving page of the draft manuscript of chapter two of the Manifesto of the Communist Parly is reproduced in the present edition, Vol. 6, p. 579.— 34
[63] On 7 June Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 24 carried a biographical outline of Georg Weerth written by Engels and accompanied by Weerth's poem 'Song of the Ap-prentices' (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 108-11). Weerth's poem referred to in this letter, namely 'Die rheinischen Weinba-uern', was published in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 29, 12 July 1883.— 34
[64] Following the assassination of Alexander II by members of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) group on 1 March 1881, liberal reforms were expected in Russia; however, in a manifesto published on 29 April 1881 Alexander III stated that he intended to strengthen autocratic rule. When King Frederick William IV of Prussia ascended the throne in 1840 the Prussian liberal bourgeoisie had hoped he would carry out the constitutional reforms promised by his father, Frederick William III. However, these hopes proved to be unfounded, and the judicial persecution of liberal bourgeois writers and officials was begun as early as 1841.— 34
[66] Here Engels quotes a thesis from the Programme of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany adopted at the Gotha Congress in 1875 (sec Note 45). It read, 'The emancipation of labour must be the work of the working class, in relation to which all other classes are only one reactionary mass.' For comment of this thesis see Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme (present edition, Vol. 24, p. 88).— 35
[67] The reference is to the 'local (lesser) state of siege' envisaged by paragraph 28 of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 37); in certain districts and places, usually centres of the labour movement, a state of siege was introduced, as a rule, for a year. During this period meetings were allowed only with police permission, the distribution of printed material in public places was prohibited and persons considered politically unreliable were expelled from the places concerned. However, the implementation of these measures led to a growth in the influence of the Socialist Workers' Party and increased activity on the part of the workers' and Social-Democratic movement in parts of Germany that were well awav from its traditional centres.— 35,
[68] Engels is referring to the English Revolution in the 17 th century and the French Revolution of 1789. Between 1642 and 1646 England witnessed its first civil war which ended in the defeat of the monarchy and the victory of Parliament relying on the support of the big, middle and petty bourgeoisie and the new nobility. The years 1789 to 1793 cover the three periods of the French revolution when power was transferred from the hands of the big bourgeoisie and the liberal nobility (Feuillants) to the commercial, industrial and landowning bourgeoisie (Girondists) and finally to the Jacobins who expressed the interests of the revolutionary-democratic petty bourgeoisie that had allied themselves with the peasantry and the lower urban strata.— 35
[70] On 12 June 1883 Pasquale Martignetti wrote to tell Engels that he had read his work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and intended to publicise it in Italy. With this in mind, Martignetti made an Italian translation from the French one by Paul Lafargue and sent it to Engels for the latter to look through. Apart from minor inser-tions, Engels made major additions to the text which had not featured in the French version.— 37
[72] As he was sorting through Marx's literary legacy, Engels found a number of works relating to Marx's preoccupation with mathematics. Marx's interest in mathematics had emerged in the early 1850s and had grown as he worked on Capital (see Marx's letter to Engels of 11 January 1858, present edition, Vol. 40). The first signs of Marx's mathematical endeavours date back to 1846 and are to be found in his initial notebooks on political economy. In the 1850s and 1860s this work was ôf an auxi-liary nature and connected with his studies of political economy, but in the latter half of the 1870s it became systematic and more independent. Marx's most complete mathematical manuscripts were first published in full in the language of the original (German) with a parallel Russian translation in: K. Maptcc, MameMamu-uecKue pyKonucu, Nauka, Moscow, 1968 (see Note 79).—39
[73] In his article 'On the Death of Karl Marx' carried by Der Sozialdemokrat in May 1883 (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 476) Engels announced that Marx's works would be published by his literary executors, Marx's youngest daughter Eleanor and Engels himself.— 39
[74] Louise Michel, a French revolutionary and participant in the Paris Commune, was sentenced in June 1883 to six years' imprisonment and ten years' stringent police surveillance for taking part in a Paris unemployed demonstration in March 1883. She was amnestied in January 1886.— 41, 404
[76] This letter was first published in English with minor abridgements in Science and Society, Vol. 2, New York, 1938, No. 2 . - 4 2
[77] Engels learned from Adolf Hepner, editor of the New-Yorker Volkszeitung, that an English translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party was being prepared in the United States. On 7-12 May 1883 Hepner wrote to Engels, 'The Mostians and Schewitsch, i. e. the Marx Memorial Committee, organised an English translation of the Communist Manifesto ... naturally, without asking you or showing you the translation... A few days ago I happened to go to the print shop and saw the proofs of the Introduction. They included the words, "It was written by K. Marx, assisted by Fr. Engels...".'—42
[78] The Manifesto of the Communist Party appeared twice in Russian in Geneva: in 1869, it was published by the Volnaya russkaya tipografiya publishing house and issued for a second time in 1882. It is not quite certain whether the first translation was by Mikhail Bakunin or Nikolai Lyubavin. The second Russian edition, supplied with a preface specially written by Marx and Engels (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 425-26), was prepared by Georgi Plekhanov and appeared in the Russian Social-Revolutionary Library series.— 42, 89
[7 9] This apparently refers to Marx's mathematical manuscripts which he sent to Engels in 1881 ('Über den Begriff der Abgeleiteten Funktion' and 'Über das Differential') (see Engels' letters to Marx of 18 August 1881 and 21 November 1882, present edition, Vol. 46; see also Note 72).— 43
[80] From the late 1860s Marx studied agrarian relations in the United States, Belgium and Russia in the intention of using this material in the third book (Volume II) of Capital when examining the emergence of ground rent. It is clear from Marx's correspondence that he obtained some of the materials he used on agrarian relations in the United States from his friends there (see Marx's letters to Sigfrid Meyer of 4 July and 14 September 1868, and to George Julian Harney of 21 January 1871; present edition, Vols. 43 and 44). On Marx's notes from Russian sources see Note 57.— 43, 88, 264
[83] Engels is referring to his previous stay in Eastbourne from 5 to 27 August 1879.— 46
[84] The reference is to a winning lottery ticket (see this volume, p. 178).— 46
[85] In his letter of 10 August 1883 Wilhelm Liebknecht asked Engels to let him have the exact dates of death of Marx's wife and eldest daughter. He further enquired about Heinrich Heine's links with the Paris Vorwärts! as well as Marx's cooperation with the same newspaper and the Deutsche-Brüsseler-^eitung. Liebknecht intended to use this information in his article 'Karl Marx' which was later published in Die Neue Z«t, N°- '0, 1883.—47
[86] It is clear from Heinrich Heine's letter to Marx of 21 September 1844 that on the same day he also sent Marx some of the proofs of his book Neue Gedichte. It included the poem 'Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen', which Heine intended to publish as a separate edition. He further requested Marx to write an introduction to this poem to appear in Vorwärts! In October 1844 the newspaper started to publish the poem, preceded by an editorial article probably written by Karl Ludwig Bernays.— 47
[87] In a letter to Engels of 25 June 1883 Pasquale Martignetti thanked the recipient for endorsing his Italian translation of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (see Note 70). Expressing his regret that he had not been able to translate from the German original, Martignetti asked Engels to advise him of a textbook which might help him to learn German; he also requested Engels to let him know where he might find works by Marx, Engels and other authors which the recipient could recommend as reading material. On 30 July Martignetti informed Engels that, as the latter had requested (see this volume, p. 37), he was sending him copies of the Italian translation of die above-mentioned work by Engels which had just appeared in Benevento.— 48
[88] This letter was first published in English in an abridged form in: K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955.—49, 101, 131, 139, 147
[89] In 1872 Johann Philipp Becker was a delegate to the Hague Congress of the Inter-• national Working Men's Association.— 49
[90] Eduard Bernstein recommended Engels the Austrian Social Democrat Emil Kaler-Reinthal as a secretary to prepare Marx's works for publication.— 50
[91] The question of a republic in France was raised in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 27, 28 June 1883, which carried an article entitled 'Louise Michel vor Gericht' containing excerpts from her speech for the defence (see Note 74), and in No. 28, 5 July 1883, in an article on the same subject under the title 'Republik oder Monarchie? Zum Jahrestag des Bastillesturmes'.— 51
[92] On 4 September 1870 in Paris, following the routing of the French army by Prussian forces at Sedan, a mass revolutionary uprising took place which led to the fall of the Second Empire and the proclamation of the Third Republic headed by a bourgeois government (see K. Marx, The Civil War in France, present edition, Vol. 22, p. 307).—51, 324
[93] The Party of Progress {Fortschrittspartei) — a bourgeois-liberal party formed in Prussia in 1861. It represented the interests of the petty bourgeoisie and the section of the middle bourgeoisie that was involved in foreign trade. The party supported the idea of German unification under Prussian supremacy but demanded the establishment of a parliamentary system. In 1866 its Right wing split away to form the National Liberal Party. In 1884 the men of Progress merged with the Left wing which had broken away from the National Liberals to form the German Party of Free Thinkers (Deutsche Freisinnige Partei).— 51, 140, 147, 533
[94] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in The Labour Monthly, London, 1933, Vol. 15, No. 9, IX.—52, 73, 80, 85, 118
[61] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx, F. Engels, On Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976.— 32, 90, 159, 498
[95] In the Preface to Volume II of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 36) Engels described in detail the state of Marx's surviving manuscript and recalled that shortly before his death Marx had told his daughter Eleanor that he (Engels) should 'make something' out of the manuscript.— 53
[96] The reference is to the second ballot to the Reichstag held on 29June 1883 at which Bebel, obtaining 11,711 votes, gained a victory over the candidate from the Party of Progress (see Note 93) who received 11,608 votes. In this way he became the thir-teenth Social-Democratic deputy to the Reichstag (see Note 43).— 53
[9 7] A hint at the statement made by Bismarck with reference to his aggressive policy towards France.— 53
[98] In January 1883 agreements were signed between Germany and Serbia on trade and the establishment of consular relations. On 12 July 1883 an agreement on trade and shipping was signed between Germany and Spain. In August 1883 talks were held on Romania's accession to the Triple Alliance (made up of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy); the talks ended with the conclusion of a defensive alliance between Romania and Austria-Hungary which reinforced Romania's subordination to the Triple Alliance.— 53
[100] In 1881 Henry Mayers Hyndman published the pamphlet England for All which he intended to serve as a commentary on the programme of the Democratic Federation (see Note 99). In two of its chapters Hyndman gave an interpretation of several sections of Volume I of Capital, in many cases failing to correctly express their content and referring neither to the author nor the book itself. Marx expressed his resolute protest at this in a letter to Hyndman of 2 July 1881 (see present edition, Vol. 46).— 54, 114
[103] A fragment from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F.Engels, On Colonialism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1959.— 55
[104] In his letter of 14 September 1883 Karl Kautsky sent Engels a leaflet apparently put out by Bruno Geiser and other adherents of the opportunist wing of the German Social Democrats. Kautsky wrote to Engels that the leaflet was a clear demonstration of how, against the background of the Anti-Socialist Law, petty bourgeois elements in the party were advancing not socialist, but petty bourgeois, slogans (the right to work and demand for a minimum wage); in order to counteract this, Kautsky suggested to Engels that he should without delay write a piece for Der Sozialdemokral explaining that it was impossible to implement the demand for a 'right to work' under capitalist conditions.— 55
[105] The reference is to a series of articles by Karl Kautsky entitled 'Die Entstehung der Ehe und Familie' and carried by the magazine Kosmos, Stuttgart, Vol. XII (October 1882-March 1883). Engels set out his opinion of the initial articles in his letters to Kautsky of 10 February and 2 March 1883 (see present edition, Vol. 46).—
[106] The reference is to the attempt to annex Port Moresby in New Guinea staged by the British colonial authorities in Queensland, Australia, in April 1883; in November 1884 the British government proclaimed a temporary protectorate over the South-Eastern part of New Guinea and the adjacent island.— 57
[107] The regular trade union congress was held in Nottingham from 10 to 15 September 1883.—57
[109] In the first three issues of Die Neue ^eil for 1883 the Austrian economist Emanuel Hans Sax (pseudonym Fritz Denhardt) published two reviews and a short article entitled 'Zur sozialen Statistik in Deutschland'. Replying to Engels, Kautsky wrote on 3 October 1883, 'Other contributors I had been counting on are holding back out of cowardice. I can only ascribe it to this that Braun and Fritz Denhardt have ceased to deliver material. I am becoming increasingly distrustful of the "educated" socialists who have not broken with the past.'—57
[110] Intending to become a factory inspector, Victor Adler took a trip around Germany, Switzerland and Britain in 1883 to familiarise himself with the work of the inspectors there. In Stuttgart he visited Kautsky, who gave him a reference for Engels.— 57
[115] The reference is to the international workers' conference held in Paris on 29 October 1883 by decision of the congress of the French Workers' Social-Revolutionary Party (Possibilists; see Note 237) which took place in late September and early October ofthat year. The Possibilists regarded its convocation as the first step towards the formation of a new International in which they would have the leadership. With this in mind, invitations to the congress were issued only to the British trade unions and the socialist movements in Italy and Spain. The decision to form an International, like others, did not yield any practical results. The anti-Broussists were opponents of the Possibilists.— 64, 96
[120] Engels is referring to Georgi Plekhanov's translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels which appeared in 1882 (see Note 78) and also to Marx's Wage Labour and Capital which was published in Russian in Geneva in the autumn of 1883 as the fourth book in the Russian Social-Revolutionary Library. The cover carried the note 'translation from the German edition of 1880 (Breslau)'.—67
[123] Wallers (Heuler) — the name the republican democrats in Germany in 1848-49 applied to the moderate constitutionalists; here Engels uses the label to describe adherents of the Right wing of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany.— 68, 125,
[124] Engels is quoting from the announcement of the publication of the Library of Contemporary Socialism series issued by Russian Social-Democratic emigres in Geneva on 25 September 1883. The announcement set out the main aims and tasks of the first Russian Marxist organisation, the Emancipation of Labour group. It read in part, 'In now changing their programme to serve their struggle against abso-lutism and the organisation of the Russian working class in a separate party with a definite socio-political programme, the former members of the Black Redistribu-tion group hereby form a new group — Emancipation of Labour — and definitively break with the old anarchist tendencies'. The group regarded the following as its main tasks: 1 ) the translation into Russian and dissemination of the major works of K. Marx and F. Engels and their followers; 2) a critique of the Narodniks and efforts to deal with current problems of Russian life.— 68
[126] In his letter of 26 November 1883 Johann Philipp Becker asked Engels to remind Laura Lafargue that she had promised, in the presence and with the agreement of Marx, to send him the letters of 1848 and 1849 which Becker had let Marx have for his work on the pamphlet Herr Vogt — 69, 98, 152, 203, 301
[129] On 19 December 1883 the Paris newspaper Le Cri du Peuple published an article by Paul Lafargue headed 'L'Assassinat d'O'Donnell'. It denounced the hostile position adopted by George Shipton, editor of the English trade union newspaper The Labour Standard, to the trial, taking place in London at the time, of Patrick O'Donnell, a member of an Irish secret society. On 6 May 1882 members of this society had killed Lord Frederic Cavendish, Principal Secretary for Irish Affairs, and his deputy T. H. Burke. The main witness for the prosecution, James Carey, himself one of the murderers, had subsequently been killed by O'Donnell. Flying in the face of democratic public opinion, The Labour Standard sharply condemned O'Donnell.—72
[15] The reference is to the third congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany which was held illegally in Copenhagen from 29 March to 2 April 1883, with 60 delegates taking part. The congress was to work out the German Social Democrats' political line on the social reforms being carried out by the bourgeois government, to decide on the party's tactics and the position to be taken by Der Sozialdemokrat, its printed organ, given the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany (see Note 37). The congress unanimously called on the party to expose the demagogy of Bismarck's domestic policy, endorsed the stance of the main printed organ and the general line of conduct of the parliamentary group (see Note 49). It further made it incumbent on every party member, including the Social-Democratic representatives in the Reichstag, to observe party discipline and help carry out party decisions (see also Note 16).—7, 14, 21
[131] Engels is referring to Johann Karl Rodbertus' letter to Rudolf Hermann Meyer of 20 September 1871. It was published in the book Briefe und socialpolitische Aufsaetze von Dr Rodbertus-Jagetzow. Published by Dr R. Meyer, Vol. 1, Berlin, [1882], p. 111.—72
[2] Engels was busy sorting out Marx's library and archives. Apart from extensive economic manuscripts (including the manuscripts of the second and third books of Capital; see Note 4), he found a large number of diverse conspectuses, excerpts, letters and documents on the working-class movement (see notes 57, 72, 174). It took Engels until late March 1884 to put the archives in order, whereupon he moved all the manuscripts which had survived and the correspondence to his own house. He was faced with tasks of enormous dimensions, namely preparing for the press Marx's unfinished works, notably volumes II and III of Capital.— 3, 6, 33
[3] On 31 March 1883 Pyotr Lavrov informed Engels from Paris that he was sending him a postal order which he had received from the students of Technological Institute and Russian women students with the request that it be used to buy a wreath to be laid on Marx's grave. Engels had an announcement printed in Der Sozialdemokrat of 3 May 1883 to the effect that the request had been carried out (see F. Engels, 'On the Death of Karl Marx', present edition, Vol. 24, p. 473).— 3
[4] Engels is referring to the manuscripts of the second and third books of Capital, written by Marx. As he studied Marx's manuscripts, Engels was able to establish within certain limits the time span in which they must have been written (see Engels' prefaces to volumes II and III of Capital, present edition, vols 36 and 37). By the spring of 1884 Engels became convinced of the need to change Marx's original plan according to which the second volume of Capital was to consist of two books and decided to publish the manuscripts of these books as volumes II and III oi Capital (see this volume, pp. 121, 122). When preparing Volume II for the press, Engels used the later versions of the drafts (see Note 17) which came to his notice afterwards (see Engels' letters to Johann Philipp Becker of 22 May, to Friedrich Adolph Sorge of 29 June and to Karl Kautsky of 18 September 1883). The second volume of Capital, edited by Engels, appeared in 1885, and the third in 1894 — 3 , 6, 26, 29, 88, 121, 348, 522
[5] The idea of writing a study of dialectics came to Marx in late 1857 or early 1858 when Ferdinand Freiligrath gave him — most probably after 22 October 1857 — an incomplete set of Hegel's Works. On 16 January 1858, Marx wrote to Engels: Tf ever the time comes when such work is again possible, I should very much like to write 2 or 3 sheets making accessible to the common reader the rational aspect of the method which Hegel not only discovered but also mystified' (see present edition, Vol. 40, p. 249). Marx was going to call the study 'Dialectic' (see his letter to Joseph Dietzgen of 9 May 1868, present edition, Vol. 43, p. 31), but this plan failed to materialise.— 3
[6] On 24 February 1883 Hermann Lopatin fled from exile in Vologda to Paris, whence he proceeded to London in September 1883.— 4
[7] Engels is referring to the sister of Paul Lafargue's mother. It is clear from Laura's letter to Engels of 4 May 1883 that Lafargue's mother lived together with her sister and the latter's children in Bordeaux.— 4
[8] The family of Jenny, Marx's eldest daughter who died in January 1883 — her husband Charles Longuet and their four children — lived, in Argenteuil near Paris.— 4
[9] Paul Lafargue, Jules Guesde and Jean Dormoy were tried by a jury in Moulins in late April 1883 for their actions in the province of Montluçon and elsewhere in the autumn of 1882; the charges brought against them were conspiracy and incitement to civil war. The court sentenced each of them to six months' imprisonment as well as imposing fines. Guesde and Lafargue served their sentences in Ste Pélagie prison, Paris, from 21 May to 21 November 1883 (see Note 402).—5, 20, 28, 30, 41, 46, 48,
[17] Eight of Marx's draft manuscripts for Volume II (Book II, as he originally intended) of Capital have survived. The longest of them, consisting of three lengthy chapters, is Manuscript I. It was completed in the spring of 1865, and Engels subsequently turned it into parts of Volume II. Since he did not regard the said manuscript as the final version of Book II, as he was preparing Volume I of Capital for the press Marx wrote Manuscript III (in which he gave a conspectus of works apparently intended for quotation in Volume II) and Manuscript IV, which Engels later described as 'an elaboration, ready for the press, of Part I and the first chapters of Part II of Book IF (see present edition, Vol. 36, Preface). In 1868-70 Marx wrote a completely new version of the second book, i.e. Manuscript II. The reason why manuscripts III and IV appeared earlier than Manuscript II is that, when he was numbering the drafts of Volume II in the late seventies, Marx started with the two complete versions and followed them with the outlines of individual parts. In the latter half of the 1870s Marx resumed work on Book II, having realised that it was not complete; although he had examined the simple reproduction of capital in great detail in Manuscript II, he had not analysed its extended reproduction. Manuscripts V, VI and VII appeared between April 1877 and July 1878 and were an attempt to turn the text into a suitable form for printing. The final version of the second book of Capital was Manuscript VIII on which Marx seems to have worked between the autumn of 1879 and early 1880. Later it was used in full by Engels when preparing Part III of Volume IL — 8, 14, 18, 26, 33, 43, 53, 58, 88, 154, 160,
[24] Engels wrote this letter on a postcard. The address, also in his hand, reads: Herrn Ed. Bernstein, 137, alte Landstraße, Riesbach-Zürich, Switzerland.— 12, 72
[27] This letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A Selection, International Publishers, New York, 1953.—13, 382,
[28] The New Yorker Volkszeitung, No. 68, 20 March 1883 reported that, on 19 March, after a meeting of New York workers in memory of Marx, Engels had been sent the following telegram: 'The proletariat of New York, assembled at the Cooper Institute, honours the memory of its immortal Karl Marx and calls on its brothers: Workers of all countries, unite!'—14
[30] Engels attached a great deal of importance to publicising Marx's theoretical and practical revolutionary activity. With this aim in mind, he wrote three biographies of Marx at different times — in 1869, 1877 and 1892 — and for different publications (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 59-64, Vol. 24, pp. 183-95 and Vol. 27, pp. 332-43). The new biography which Engels planned, taking account of the extensive correspondence and other materials which had survived, and to which he refers in this letter, was not written.—14, 17, 26, 40, 79
[34] Following the introduction of a local state of siege in Leipzig in 1881 (see Note 67), Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel and other German socialists had been forced to leave the city. They settled in the village of Borsdorf near Leipzig.— 16, 19, 20, 47,
[37] The Exceptional Law Against the Socialists (Gesetz gegen die gemeingefährlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie — the Law against the Harmful and Dangerous Aspirations of Social Democracy) was introduced by the Bismarck government, supported by the majority in the Reichstag, on 21 October 1878 to counter the socialist and workers' movement. This law, better known as the Anti-Socialist Law, made the Social-Democratic Party of Germany illegal, banned all party and mass workers' organisations, and the socialist and workers' press; on the basis of this law socialist literature was confiscated and Social Democrats subjected to reprisals. However, during its operation the Social-Democratic Party, assisted by Marx and Engels, uprooted both reformist and anarchist elements and managed to substan-tially strengthen and widen its influence among the people by skilfully combining illegal and legal methods of work. Under pressure from the mass workers' movement, the Anti-Socialist Law was abrogated on 1 October 1890. For Engels' assessment of this law, see his article 'Bismarck and the German Working Men's Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).—17, 21, 26, 32, 50, 93, 100, 114, 124, 125,
[39] The letter mentioned has not been found.— 18, 23, 62, 80, 108, 124, 147, 201, 204,
[56] The idea of translating Capital into English occurred to Marx as early as 1865, when he was working on the manuscript (see Marx's letter to Engels of 31 July 1865, present edition, Vol. 42). The British journalist and member of the International's General Council, Peter Fox, was to help Marx find a publisher. However, this matter was not settled due to Fox's death in 1869. The English translation of the first volume of Capital, edited by Engels, did not appear until after Marx's death, in January 1887, and was published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., London. The translation was done by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling between mid-1883 and March 1886. Eleanor Marx-Aveling took part in the preparatory work for the edition (see also this volume, pp. 33 and 127-28).—29, 31, 33, 52, 83, 419, 421, 423, 426, 434, 436, 447, 449-50, 453, 456, 460-63, 468, 471, 474, 480, 482, 493-94, 506, 509, 522, 527-28
[59] The first volume of Capital was translated into French in full by Joseph Roy and appeared in Paris in 1872-75 as individual instalments which were then put together to form a book. Marx gave an assessment of the translation and the work which had been done in connection with it in the Preface and Afterword to the French edition (see present edition, Vol. 35) and also in his letter to Nikolai Danielson of 28 May 1872 (present edition, Vol. 44). The changes and additions which Engels made to the third German edition of Volume I of Capital (1883) on the basis of the French edition were pointed out by him in the Preface to the said edition (see present edition, Vol. 35).—29, 33, 41, 42, 385
[65] In the 1870s and 1880s the French government pursued an active colonialist policy: in 1876 Franco-British financial control had been established in Egypt, and interference in the country's internal affairs continued until 1882, in 1881-83 a French protectorate was established in Tunisia. In 1882 came the provocation of an armed conflict in Madagascar and the beginning of a colonial war in North Vietnam (Tongking) which grew to become a war with China and led to the setting up of a French protectorate in Vietnam in June 1884.— 34, 57
[69] Engels is referring to Volume II of The German Ideology (present edition, Vol. 5; see also Note 60).—37, 38
[25] The reference is to Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (see present edition, Vol. 24) which in 1883 was published in three German editions running to a total of 10,000 copies. The work was composed of three revised chapters by Engels from his work Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Diihring) (see present edition, Vol. 25).—12, 15, 37, 60
[7 5] The reference is to Marx's surviving personal copy of the first volume of the second German edition of Capital (Hamburg, 1872). All the changes and additions which Marx made to the text are given in Marx/Engels Gesammtausgabe (MEGA 2), Abt. II, Bd. 8, Berlin, 1988.— 41, 42
[81] Following the appearance in 1875 of the French edition of Volume I of Capital (see Note 59), the French socialist Gabriel Deville considered issuing a short conspectus of this work (see Marx's letter to Deville of 23 January 1877, present edition, Vol. 45). On 2 August 1882 he met Marx in Paris where the latter looked through part of his manuscript. On 10 August 1883 Deville wrote to Engels that Paul Lafargue had told him he (Engels) was willing to read the rest of the work. He sent Engels the manuscript with the request that he make the necessary corrections. Deville's book was published that year under the title Le Capital de Karl Marx. Résumé et accom-pagné d'un aperçu sur le socialisme scientifique. In the Preface the author wrote that he had done the work 'at the courteous request and benevolent encouragement of Karl Marx'. Deville sent Engels a copy with his own dedication. For Engels' assessment of the book see this volume, pp. 61, 76-77.-44, 50, 52, 59, 61, 63, 94, 112, 385
[82] Between 17 August and 14 September 1883 Engels was on holiday in Eastbourne on the south coast of England.— 44, 45, 47, 50, 58
[1] This letter was first published in English in an abridged form in: K. Marx.and F. Engels, Letters on 'Capital', New Park Publications, London, 1983.— 3, 6, 87, 92,