Letter to Bertalan Szemere, March 10, 1853

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 March 1853


First published in the journal Magyar Tudomany, No. 4, 1978
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO BERTALAN SZEMERE

London, 10 March 1853

I have received your last lines. You will have read Kossuth's various statements.[1] Even before Mazzini's statement[2] was published I knew that he [Kossuth] had written a most embittered private letter about Kossuth to one of his friends here, an Englishman.[3] In connection with this I wrote the following to the Daily New-York Tribune:[4] 'As Mr Mazzini himself has now broken the ice I may as well state that Kossuth disowned his own document[5] under the pressure of his Paris friends. This is not the first symptom, in Kossuth's past career, of vacillating weakness, inextricable contradictions and false duplicity. He possesses all the attractive virtues, but also all the feminine faults, of the Artist character. He is a great artist "en paroles".'[6] I recommend Mr Szemere's lately published biographies Batthyâny, Görgey and Kossuth to those who, unwilling to bow to popular superstition, are anxious to form a matter-of-fact judgment.' I sign all my articles. Attacks will now follow, so I shall have an opportunity to go deeper en matière.[7] I should be obliged if you would communicate to me in good time any news you hear about the emigrants, particularly as regards the par nobile fratrum,[8] With a couple of pieces of such information I can always buy myself the right to deal with the matter itself in the Tribune.

Quant à[9] Zerffi, whom I have not seen for a fortnight, I told him at any rate that if I knew Kossuth personally I would have felt it was my duty to warn him against Bangya. It seems to me that Zerffi is talkative and somewhat indiscreet. But I do not by any means believe that he is to be placed on the same level as Bangya, but that he is much more honourable.

2,000 copies of my Revelations Concerning the Cologne Trial (sent to Switzerland on 6 December 1852)[10] were confiscated on the Baden border 3 months later. I am convinced that Bangya had something to do with that too. C'est un infâme qu'il faut écraser![11]

Pulszky went to America about 4 weeks ago. I think Kossuth sent him there to restore the renown he has lost with the Press and to intrigue against his opponents. Pulszky will try to get me too a bad name with the New-York Tribune, but I prophesy no great success for him.

I remain yours most respectfully

Ch. Williams

  1. ↑ Two statements published in various English newspapers denied his participation in the Milan uprising. See in particular: 'M. M. Kossuth and Mazzini and The Times', 'A Letter from Kossuth', The Daily News, Nos. 2105 and 2117, 18 February and 4 March 1853. See also this volume, pp. 283-84.
  2. ↑ 'A letter from Mazzini', The Daily News, No. 2115, 2 March 1853.
  3. ↑ Mayne Reid
  4. ↑ K. Marx, 'Forced Emigration.—Kossuth and Mazzini.—The Refugee Question.—Election Bribery in England.—Mr. Cobden' (see present edition, Vol. 11, p. 532.)
  5. ↑ L. Kossuth, 'In the Name of the Hungarian Nation.—To the Soldiers Quartered in Italy (February 1853)', The Times, No. 21348, 10 February 1853.
  6. ↑ hard - singleness of mind
  7. ↑ into the matter
  8. ↑ noble pair of brothers (Horace, Satires, II, 3)
  9. ↑ As for
  10. ↑ See this volume, pp. 264 65.
  11. ↑ He is the infamous thing that must be crushed.—From the expression Ecrasez l'infâme frequently repeated by Voltaire in his letters of 1759 68. By the infamous thing he meant the Catholic Church.