Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 9, 1854

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 9 March 1854


First published much abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39

MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 9 March 1854 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

I have not written for a long time because I have had a great deal of TROUBLE at home which has even prevented me from reading the papers properly, so that I don't know whether anything of yours has yet appeared in The Daily News or how the whole thing is going.[1]

As yet I have got nothing, i.e. not a single farthing, out of my 'Palmerston', nor does there seem to be any prospect of my doing so. Mr Trübner has himself told me that, quant a lui,[2] it is a PRINCIPLE of his never to pay for the stuff he publishes. Moreover, the thing's out of date au moment.

On Tuesday[3] I shall send the last of the sample articles to the Cape.[4] (So you must let me have something for the Tribune, PERHAPS THE GREEK REVOLUTION?) Tuesday will be the last day of regular sailings to the Cape, since the company has fallen out with the government over charges.

I am faced with the repulsive prospect of enduring throughout the spring and summer the same chronic pressure as in previous years, since it is not possible for me to work off past debts with the earnings from the Tribune alone. From time to time I'm driven wild by the thought that I shall never get out of this mire.

You have not returned Lassalle's letter as you indicated you had in your last.[5] I don't need it but only want to be sure that it hasn't gone astray in the post or fallen into the wrong hands.

I have received an invitation from the LABOUR PARLIAMENT[6] to sit as HONORARY DELEGATE in Manchester (Nadaud and Louis Blanc likewise). I wrote today, thanking them for it, and made a few remarks which, according to how they are construed, could be either very extreme or very moderate.[7] I sent Jones your office address today.

The great Ruge intends to found a university (a free one) in America and, as Heinzen announces, 150 dollars has already been collected for this noble purpose.

The great Franz Sigel has become Dulon's son-in-law. What else has been happening among that crew you will discover from a parcel which will descend on you in a few days' time.

In yesterday's Advertiser there was a military (?) article by Urquhart[8] in which he maintains that the Turks should have sent their main army to the Dobrudja and assaulted the Russians from there. Cites General Valentini. I shall make sure to send you the issue.

I have written to Lassalle[9] and await further communications from him.

Tzschirner came to see me, didn't find me in, is going to America on a financial matter with his 80-year-old mother and will then settle over here. Claims he already knows you, or so Imandt says.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 567-69.
  2. ↑ as for him
  3. ↑ 14 March
  4. ↑ In a letter to Marx of 27 March 1854 J. J. H. Smuts, editor of The Zuid Afrikaan, refused to accept any further contributions from Marx, for, he wrote, 'the amount of remuneration claimed by [Marx] for such correspondence, entirely exceeds the means which my establishment allows me to apply to such a purpose'
  5. ↑ Marx has in mind Lassalle's letter of 10 February 1854. Engels' letter to Marx mentioned here has not been found
  6. ↑ In 1853, with the growth of a massive strike movement of the British proletariat, a group of Chartists headed by Ernest Jones proposed to create a broad workers' organisation, The Mass Movement, which was to unite trade unions and unorganised workers with the primary aim of coordinating strikes in the various districts of the country. The organisation was to be headed by a regularly convened Labour Parliament consisting of delegates elected at meetings of both unorganised workers and of the trade unions associated with The Mass Movement. The Labour Parliament assembled in Manchester on 6 March 1854 and was in session till 18 March 1854. It discussed and adopted the programme of The Mass Movement and set up an Executive of five members. Marx, elected honorary delegate to the Parliament, sent a letter to it (see present edition, Vol. 13), in which he formulated the primary task of the British labour movement—the necessity to create an independent proletarian mass political party. Marx regarded the convocation of the Labour Parliament as an effort to free the labour movement in Britain from narrow trade union limitations. The attempt to found The Mass Movement failed because the majority of the trade union leaders did not approve of associating the trade unions with the political struggle and did not support the idea of creating a single mass workers' organisation. By the summer of 1854 the strike movement had abated and this also cut short the participation of broad masses of workers in the movement. After March 1854 the Labour Parliament never met again. Besides the 'Letter to the Labour Parliament', Marx wrote two more articles on the activity of the Labour Parliament: 'Opening of the Labour Parliament.— English War Budget' and 'The Labor Parliament' (see present edition, Vol. 13)
  7. ↑ K. Marx, 'Letter to the Labour Parliament'.
  8. ↑ D. Urquhart, 'What the Governments of England and Turkey Ought Severally to Do. To the Editor of The Morning Advertiser', The Morning Advertiser, No. 19566, 8 March 1854.
  9. ↑ Marx's letter to Lassalle has not been found