Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, March 25, 1852

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 25 March 1852


First published in English for the first time, slightly abridged, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895, International Publishers, New York, 1953
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO JOSEPH WEYDEMEYER

IN NEW YORK

London, 25 March 1852 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Weydemeyer,

Good luck to the new world citizen! There is no more splendid time to enter this world than the present. Come the day when people can travel from London to Calcutta in a week, both our heads will long since have rolled or started to loll. And Australia and California and the Pacific Ocean! The new world citizens will be unable to comprehend how small our world once was.

If you did not receive the final instalment[1] enclosed herewith a week ago, your total silence is to blame.

Now in the pamphlet,[2] too, I would like my article to be divided up as it was sent to you, under headings I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. These figures serve as sign-posts for the reader. They take the place of titles. At the end of V, add the following words: 'But Bonaparte answered the Party of Order as Agesilaus did King Agis: "I seem to thee an ant, but one day I shall be a lion."[3] But the thing must, of course, be brought out now all at once in its entirety.

Where my wife has failed to leave space enough to indicate the paragraphs, I have marked them with a T.

Cluss' statement[4] is splendid. Why not—it strikes me as a good idea—include Ernest Jones' letter in your first issue?[5] A couple of introductory words would suffice to explain it.

Maintenant: Cluss will already have told you about the Szemere business. First a publisher will have to be contacted through me and arrangements made for his pamphlet—some 10 sheets—on Kossuth, L. Batthyâny and Görgey—to be brought out in German and later in English. You might, if it can be managed, publish the German original as your second instalment without, of course, any other additions. But the publisher must pay for the thing if you don't publish it yourself.

When this has been arranged—and perhaps even before that—the Revolution will receive 500 dollars from this source, on condition that Bangya comes in as co-editor, i.e. only in the sense that part of the paper is allotted to the Hungarians and run by Bangya, Szemere's agent. But you'll have no difficulty in getting on with him, car il est bon homme.

I am very glad to hear that you have found employment as a surveyor. You will be able to operate with greater confidence and peace of mind.

One of these days I shall be starting on Mazzini. Whereas Mr Kinkel, whose wisdom, by his own admission, derives from nursery tales, now chooses to see nothing but unity among the 'great men', he finds on his return the battle raging optima forma.[6] For Ledru and Mazzini have bought the Brussels daily La Nation for 10,000 fr. drawn from the Italian loan. Mais voilà que il Signore Mazzini looses off an opening article, in which he vents all his infamous anti-French, anti-socialist inanities about the initiative lost by France, and this so wildly that Ledru now feels compelled—and has, it seems, made up his mind—to take issue with him personally. On the other hand, the socialists L. Blanc, Pierre Leroux, Cabet, Mallarmet, etc., have joined forces and published a venomous retort composed by dear little L. Blanc. At the same time the majority of the French émigrés are violently incensed against Ledru, whom they rightly hold responsible for Mazzini's stupidities. Fire has broken out in the very midst of their camp.

Should you happen to get hold of Der Tag ist angebrochen, a book by that miserable cleric, Dulon, who fancies himself as a Lamennais, mind you give the cur a good dusting.

Dronke has been arrested in Paris where he lingered too long on his way here from Switzerland instead of hurrying through.

I like your selection very much. Pieper's article[7] might do well enough for a newspaper. For a pamphlet it was dashed off too hastily and perfunctorily.

Can you not get news of Edgar[8] from Braunfels? We have heard nothing from the lazybones and this is causing his mother[9] great anxiety. A crazy lad!

Cluss' protest[10] was greeted with general applause at the League meeting here, and both we and Stechan's society[11] found your Revolution to our liking. Warm regards from my family to yours.

Your

K. M.

In case the infamous reply from Willich's society to Pfänder's statement should appear in some paper or other (e.g. Weitling's[12] ), I am sending you Pfänder's 2nd statement.

What can red Becker be doing? Has he, too, become a Kinkelian?

Apropos. Some of the engineering workers have come to their senses and sent apologies to Jones. By now the English workers have collected sufficient money for Jones to bring out a big STAMPED weekly in addition to his Notes.[13] The jackass who is to convey these to you has still not left.[14]

  1. ↑ of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, VII
  2. ↑ Marx has in mind the plan suggested by Weydemeyer (in his letter to Marx of 10 March 1852), after the weekly Die Revolution ceased to appear, to publish the manuscripts held by Weydemeyer as separate pamphlets. The first issue was to contain Freiligrath's poems; the second, Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte; the third, Eccarius' article on the English machine-building workers' strike; the fourth, Cluss' article on the campaign for abstention from strong drinks; the fifth, his own article against Kinkel's memorandum; the sixth, Engels' article on England, and so on. However, Weydemeyer managed to issue two pamphlets only (see Note 2)
  3. ↑ Weydemeyer fulfilled Marx's instructions (see present edition, Vol. 11, p. 163). Marx relates, not quite accurately, the story told by the Greek writer Athenaeus (2nd-3rd cent. A.D.) in his book Deipnosophistai (Dinner-Table Philosophers). The Egyptian Pharaoh Tachos, alluding to the small stature of the Spartan King Agesilaus, who had come with his troops to the Pharaoh's help, said: 'The mountain was in labour. Zeus was afraid. But the mountain has brought forth a mouse.' Agesilaus replied: 'I seem to you now only a mouse, but the time will come when I will appear to you like a lion.'
  4. ↑ Straubinger—German travelling journeyman. Marx and Engels ironically applied the name to some participants in the German working-class movement of the time who were connected with guild production and displayed petty-bourgeois sectarian tendencies
  5. ↑ Jones' letter to Weydemeyer of 3 March 1852 was intended for Die Revolution. It described the condition of various classes of English society and analysed the development of class struggle in England. Judging by Weydemeyer's letter to Marx of 24 May 1853, the letter was published in the American democratic papers at the end of 1852 or beginning of 1853
  6. ↑ A. Cluss, 'An den Garanten Congress des deutschen Anleihens in Cincinnati'.
  7. ↑ W. Pieper, 'Die Arbeiter Assoziation in England'.
  8. ↑ Edgar von Westphalen
  9. ↑ Caroline von Westphalen
  10. ↑ Engels describes here the reaction of the European Press to Louis Bonaparte's policy of unrestrained social demagogy on the one hand and increased personal power on the other after the coup d'état of 2 December 1851. On 1 January 1852, a solemn service in honour of the President for which 190,000 francs were assigned was held in Notre Dame de Paris; the eagles on state banners (symbol of Napoleon's Empire) were restored. The Prince President moved to the royal palace of the Tuileries, where on 14 January a new Constitution was proclaimed under which all power was concentrated in the hands of the head of the State elected for a term of 10 years, the composition and legislative functions of all the higher state institutions were also placed under his control. A detailed analysis of the methods and essence of the demagogic policy pursued by Bonaparte in the social sphere and of repressions against the democratic and working-class movements is given in Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (present edition, Vol. 11)
  11. ↑ This refers to the workers' society founded in London in January 1852 with Marx's support. It consisted of those who had withdrawn from the German Workers' Educational Society (see Note 24) and had the carpenter G. L. Stechan, a refugee from Hanover, as its chairman. An active part in organising this society was also played by Georg Lochner, a worker, Communist League member and close friend of Marx and Engels. The society did not survive long, many of its members, Stechan included, coming under the influence of the Willich-Schapper faction and rejoining their organisation
  12. ↑ Republik der Arbeiter
  13. ↑ Notes to the People
  14. ↑ Hochstuhl