Letter to Andreas Stifft, May 6, 1849

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 6 May 1849


First published in: G. Becker, 'Neue Dokumente von Karl Marx aus dem Jahre 1849', Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 1974, Heft 4
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38

Harburg, 6 May [1849]

To Dr. Stifft in Vienna

Dear Stifft,

Post tot discrimina rerum,[1] I am glad to have an opportunity of reminding you of my existence. Each new number of the Vienna paper[2] gives me the real satisfaction of knowing beyond doubt that you have not been swallowed up by the counter-revolutionary monster.[3] I trust that we shall yet find ourselves seated side by side at a convention.

The bearer, Bruhn, is one of my best friends and a proficient, active revolutionary. I recommend him to you most highly.

Yours

K. Marx

  1. ↑ After so many vicissitudes (Virgil, Aeneid, I).
  2. ↑ Der Radikale
  3. ↑ An allusion to the cruel suppression of the popular uprising in Vienna in October 1848 by the Austrian counter-revolution. Marx made Andreas Stiftt's acquaintance in August 1848 during his visit to Vienna (*), where he made a speech at a meeting of the Democratic Society and delivered a report and a lecture at the Vienna Workers' Society. Stiftt was member of both these organisations and a contributor to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
    (*) The discontent of the bourgeois shareholders over the political fine of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung grew particularly strong after it defended the June proletarian insurgents in Paris. — These shareholders refused to finance arid support the newspaper any longer. So in August arid September 1848 Marx made a trip to Berlin and Vienna to raise funds for the further publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Wladislaw Kóscielski gave him about 2,000 talers on behalf of the Polish democrats.
    The interruption in publication caused by the state of siege in Cologne aggravated the newspaper's financial position. Marx was practically compelled to take upon himself most of the expenses arid he spent his share of the inheritance front his father — about 7,000 talers — to purchase an expensive quick printing press.