Letter to Friedrich Engels, November 4, 1864

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 4 November 1864


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 4 November 1864

Dear FREDERICK,

I was very pleased to hear from you again. All well here. Myself included, since your departure from here until the day before yesterday, when yet another carbuncle appeared below my right breast. If the thing does not clear up quickly and others appear, I intend to use Gumpert's arsenic remedy this time.

I would translate your runic rum hart, etc.[2] as Dutch-Frisian for open heart, clear horizon. But I fear that there may be a quite different explanation, so I give up the riddle.

You must send all the enclosed papers back to me as soon as read. I still need them. So that I do not forget any of the things I wanted to tell you, I am going to number them.

1. Lassalle and Countess Hatzfeldt. The lengthy document is a copy of a circular that Herwegh's wife (honi soit qui mal y pense)[3] , Emma, sent to Berlin immediately after the catastrophe,[4] so that EXTRACTS from it could be put in the newspapers. You will see from it how cleverly Emma manages to put herself and her spineless Georg in the limelight at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the report; how the account evades two important points, firstly Rüstow's meeting with Dönniges and daughter, when the latter must have renounced Lassalle before the scene recounted by Emma took place. Secondly: how the duel came about. Lassalle wrote the insulting letter. But then something happened which is not reported and which led directly to the duel.

The suppression of two such important and crucial points makes one sceptical of the accuracy of the account.

The Hatzfeldt letter. On her arrival in Berlin I got Liebknecht to take her a brief letter of condolence from myself.[5] Liebknecht wrote to me[6] that she was complaining 'I left Lassalle in the lurch', as if I could have done the man any greater service than by keeping my mouth shut and letting him do as he liked. (In his last speech before the Düsseldorf assizes, he played the part of Marquis Posa with handsome William as Philipp II,[7] whom he was trying to persuade to suspend the present constitution, proclaim universal direct suffrage and ally himself with the proletariat.[8] ) You can see what is behind her letter and what she wants of me. I wrote a very amicable but diplomatically discouraging letter in reply.[9] The latterday Redeemer! That personage and the sycophants, who surround her, are mad.

Apropos. A couple of NUMBERS of E. Jones' Notes to the People (1851, 1852) happened to fall into my hands again; as far as the economic articles are concerned, the main points in them had been written directly under my guidance and partly even in direct collaboration with myself.[10] WELL! What do I find in them? That at that time we conducted the same polemic—only better—against the co-operative movement, since it claimed, in its present narrow-minded form, to be the last word, as Lassalle conducted against Schulze-Delitzsch in Germany 10-12 years later.

In his last will and testament Lassalle has 'installed' Bernhard Becker, the unfortunate fellow, who was Juch's editor on the Hermann for a while, as his successor in the office of President of the General Association of German Workers—in his 'last will and testament' (like a ruling prince). The Association's congress meets in Düsseldorf this month,[11] and strong opposition to this 'decree' by last will and testament is expected.

Also enclosed, letter from a worker in Solingen, Klings, in fact the clandestine leader of the Rhineland workers (former member of the League). This letter is not to be returned but filed.

2. WORKINGMENS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION. Some time ago, London workers sent an address to workers in Paris about Poland and called upon them to act jointly in the matter.[12]

For their part, the Parisians sent over a deputation headed by a worker named Tolain, who was the real workers' candidate in the last elections in Paris, a thoroughly nice fellow. (His compagnons were quite nice lads, too.) A PUBLIC MEETING in St Martin's Hall was called, for 28 September 1864, by Odger (shoemaker, President of the local COUNCIL OF ALL LONDON TRADES' UNIONS and, in particular, also of the TRADES' UNIONS SUFFRAGE AGITATION SOCIETY,[13] which is connected with Bright) and Cremer, a MASON and secretary of the MASONS' UNION. (These two had arranged the big TRADE-UNION MEETING on North America chaired by Bright in St James's Hall, ditto the Garibaldi manifestations.[14] ) A certain Le Lubez was sent to ask me if I would participate pour les ouvriers allemands,[15] and, in particular, whether I was willing to provide a German worker to speak at the MEETING, etc. I provided them with Eccarius, who put on a splendid performance, and I was also present myself in a non-speaking capacity on the PLATFORM. I knew that on this occasion 'people who really count' were appearing, both from London and from Paris, and I therefore decided to waive my usual standing rule to DECLINE ANY SUCH INVITATIONS.

(Le Lubez is a young Frenchman, i.e. in his thirties; however, he grew up in Jersey and London, speaks capital English and is a very good intermediary between the French and English workers.) (Music teacher and leçons[16] OF FRENCH.)

At the MEETING, which was chock-full (for THERE IS NOW EVIDENTLY A REVIVAL OF THE WORKING CLASSES TAKING PLACE), Major Wolff (Thurn-Taxis, Garibaldi's adjutant) represented THE LONDON ITALIAN WORKINGMENS SOCIETY.[17] It was resolved to found a 'WORKINGMENS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION', whose GENERAL COUNCIL is to have its seat in London and is to 'intermediate' between the workers' SOCIETIES in Germany, Italy, France, and England. Ditto that a General WORKINGMENS CONGRESS was to be convened in Belgium in 1865. A PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE was set up at the MEETING, with Odger, Cremer and many others, some of them former Chartists, former Owenites, etc., representing England, Major Wolff, Fontana, and other Italians representing Italy, Le Lubez, etc. for France, Eccarius and myself for Germany. The COMMITTEE was empowered to co-opt as many people as it chose.

So FAR so GOOD. I attended the first meeting of the committee. A Sub-Committee (including myself) was set up to draft a déclaration des principes and provisional rules.[18] Indisposition prevented me from attending the meeting of the Sub-Committee and the subsequent meeting of the full committee.

At these two meetings, which I did not attend,—that of the Sub-Committee and the subsequent one of the full committee—the following occurred:

Major Wolff had submitted the regulations (statutes) of the Italian Workers' Associations (which possess a central organisation, but, as emerged later, are essentially associated BENEFIT SOCIETIES) to be used by the new Association. I saw the stuff later. It was EVIDENTLY a concoction of Mazzini's, and that tells you in advance in what spirit and phraseology the real question, the labour question, was dealt with. As well as how the NATIONALITIES question intruded into it.[19]

What is more, an old Owenite, Weston—now a MANUFACTURER himself, a very amiable and worthy man—had drawn up a programme full of extreme confusion and of indescribable breadth.

The subsequent full committee meeting instructed the Sub-Committee to remodel Weston's programme, ditto Wolff's REGULATIONS. Wolff himself left to attend the congress of the ITALIAN WORKINGMEN'S ASSOCIATIONS in Naples and persuade them to join the central association in London.

A further meeting of the Sub-Committee, which again I did not attend, as I was informed of their rendezvous too late. At this meeting, une déclaration des principes and a revised version of Wolff's rules were presented by Le Lubez and accepted by the Sub-Committee for submission to the full committee. The full committee met on 18 October. Eccarius wrote to me that it was a case of periculum in mora,[20] so I went along and was really shocked when I heard the worthy Le Lubez read out a fearfully cliché-ridden, badly written and totally unpolished preamble PRETENDING TO BE A DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES, with Mazzini showing through the whole thing from beneath a crust of the most insubstantial scraps of French socialism. What is more, the Italian rules had by and large been adopted, whose aim, apart from all their other faults, was really something quite impossible, a sort of central government of the European working classes (with Mazzini in the background, of course). I remonstrated mildly, and, after prolonged debate, Eccarius proposed that the Sub-Committee should subject the thing to further 'editing'. However, the 'SENTIMENTS' expressed in Lubez' DECLARATION were carried.

Two days later, on 20 October, Cremer representing England, Fontana (Italy) and Le Lubez met at my house. (Weston was unable to be present.) I had not previously had the papers (Wolff's and Le Lubez') in my hands, so could not prepare anything; but I was absolutely determined that NOT ONE SINGLE LINE of the stuff should be allowed to stand if I could help it. To gain time, I proposed that before we 'edited' the preamble, we ought to 'discuss' the RULES. This was done. It was 1 o'clock in the morning before the first of the 40 RULES was adopted. Cremer said (and that was my whole aim): we have nothing to put before the committee that is to meet on 25 October. We must postpone it until 1 November. But the Sub-Committee can meet on 27 October and attempt to reach a definite conclusion. This was agreed and the 'papers' were 'bequeathed' to me for my perusal.

I could see it was impossible to make anything out of the stuff. In order to justify the extremely peculiar way in which I intended to edit the SENTIMENTS that had already been 'carried', I wrote AN ADDRESS TO THE WORKING CLASSES[21] (which was not in the original plan; A SORT OF REVIEW OF THE ADVENTURES OF THE WORKING CLASSES SINCE 1845); on the pretext that all the necessary facts were contained in this 'Address' and that we ought not to repeat the same things three times over, I altered the whole preamble, threw out the déclaration des principes and finally replaced the 40 RULES by 10. Insofar as INTERNATIONAL POLITICS is mentioned in the 'Address', I refer to COUNTRIES and not to NATIONALITIES, and denounce Russia, not the minores gentium.[22] The Sub-Committee adopted all my proposals. I was, however, obliged to insert two sentences about 'DUTY' and 'RIGHT', and ditto about 'TRUTH, MORALITY AND JUSTICE' in the preamble to the rules,[23] but these are so placed that they can do no harm.

At the meeting of the General Committee my 'ADDRESS', etc., was adopted with great enthusiasm (UNANIMOUSLY). The debate on the form of publication, etc., is to take place next Tuesday.[24] Le Lubez has a copy of the 'Address' for translation into French and Fontana one for translation into Italian. (For a start there is a weekly CALLED Bee-Hive,[25] edited by Trade Unionist Potter, a sort of Moniteur.) I am to translate the stuff into German myself.

It was very difficult to frame the thing so that our view should appear in a form that would make it ACCEPTABLE to the present outlook of the workers' movement. In a couple of weeks, the same people will be having MEETINGS on the franchise with Bright and Cobden. It will take time before the revival of the movement allows the old boldness of language to be used. We must be fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.[26] You will get the stuff as soon as it is printed.

3. Bakunin sends his regards. He left today for Italy where he is living (Florence). I saw him yesterday for the first time in 16 years. I must say I liked him very much, more so than previously. With regard to the Polish movement, he said the Russian government had needed the movement to keep Russia itself quiet, but had not counted on anything like an 18-month struggle. They had thus provoked the affair in Poland. Poland had been defeated by two things, the influence of Bonaparte and, secondly, the hesitation of the Polish aristocracy in openly and unambiguously proclaiming peasant socialism from the outset.[27] From now on—after the collapse of the Polish affair—he (Bakunin) will only involve himself in the socialist movement.

On the whole, he is one of the few people whom after 16 years I find to have moved forwards and not backwards. I also discussed Urquhart's DENUNCIATIONS with him. (Apropos: the International Association will probably lead to a rupture between myself and these friends!) He inquired a great deal after yourself and Lupus. When I told him of the latter's death, he said straightaway that the movement had suffered an irreplaceable loss.

4. Crisis. By no means burnt out on the Continent yet (esp. France). Incidentally, what the crises have lost in intensity, they have now gained in frequency.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in the Labour Monthly, No. 4, London, 1923.
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 9.
  3. ↑ the shame be his who thinks ill of it (the motto of the English Order of the Garter)
  4. ↑ Marx means the death of Ferdinand Lassalle on 31 August 1864 after being fatally wounded in a duel with the Romanian nobleman Janko von Racowita.
  5. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 41, p. 563.
  6. ↑ on 30 September 1864
  7. ↑ Marquis Posa and Philipp II are characters from Schiller's Don Carlos; William — King William I of Prussia.
  8. ↑ Lassalle spoke before the Düsseldorf assizes on 27 June 1864. His speech was first published in the Düsseldorfer Zeitung Nos. 176-78 for 1864, and appeared separately under the title Prozeß gegen den Schriftsteller Herrn Ferdinand Lassalle, verhandelt zu Düsseldorf vor der korrektioneilen Appelkammer am 27. Juni 1864, Düsseldorf, 1864.
  9. ↑ See this volume, p. 5.
  10. ↑ E. Jones, 'A Letter to the Advocates of the Co-operative Principle, and to the Members of Co-operative Societies', 'Co-operation. What It Is, and What It Ought to Be' (see present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 573-89).
  11. ↑ The congress (general assembly) of the General Association of German Workers met in Düsseldorf on 27 December 1864. It elected Bernhard Becker President of the Association.
  12. ↑ 'To the Workmen of France from the Working Men of England', The Bee Hive Newspaper, No. 112, 5 December 1863.
  13. ↑ Marx is referring to the London Trades Council, first elected at a conference of trade union delegates held in London in May 1860. It headed the London trade unions numbering many thousands of members and was influential amongst the British workers. In the first half of the 1860s the Council directed the British workers' campaign against intervention in the USA, in defence of Poland and Italy, and later for the legal status of the trade unions. The leaders of the following large trade unions played a big role in the Council: the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (Robert Applegarth), the Shoemakers' Society (George Odger), the Operative Bricklayers' Society (Edwin Coulson and George Howell) and the Amalgamated Engineers (William Allan). The London Trades Council's representatives took part in establishing the International Working Men's Association (the First International) and were members of its Central (General) Council. But, while maintaining contacts with the International Association and collaborating with it, the London Council, influenced by some reformist trade unionists, refused (finally in January 1867) to officially affiliate to it as an English section. The Trades' Unionists Manhood Suffrage and Vote by Ballot Association was founded in September 1864. Odger was its President, Hartwell its Secretary, and Trimlett its Treasurer. Subsequently all of them became members of the Central (General) Council of the International Working Men's Association.
  14. ↑ On 26 March 1863 the London Trades Council held a meeting at St James's Hall to express the British workers' solidarity with the struggle of the North American States to abolish slavery. The participants also protested against Britain's plans for armed intervention in the US Civil War (see Note 11) on the side of the Southern States. The meeting was chaired by the bourgeois radical John Bright. In early April 1864, Garibaldi visited England with a view to raising funds for an expedition to end Austrian domination in Venetia. The English public at large gave an enthusiastic welcome to Italy's national hero and official honours were therefore heaped on him at the beginning of his visit. However, Garibaldi's meeting with Mazzini, who lived in England as a political emigrant, and his speeches in support of the Polish insurgents angered the British ruling circles. Garibaldi left England at the end of April.
  15. ↑ for the German workers
  16. ↑ lessons
  17. ↑ Marx is referring to the Associazione di Mutuo Progresso founded at the end of June 1864 by the Italian workers resident in London. Initially the Society numbered about 300 members and was influenced by Mazzini. Garibaldi was elected its Honorary President. In January 1865 the Society became affiliated to the International Association.
  18. ↑ The Sub-Committee or Standing Committee was the executive body of the Central (General) Council of the International. It usually assembled once a week and drafted many of the decisions which were later adopted by the Council. The Sub-Committee evolved from a commission, elected when the International Working Men's Association was set up, to draft its programme documents. The Sub-Committee included the President of the General Council (until this office was abolished in September 1867), its General Secretary and the corresponding secretaries for the different countries. Marx took an active part in the work of the Standing Committee as Corresponding Secretary for Germany.
  19. ↑ The Statutes submitted by Luigi Wolff at a meeting of the Sub-Committee on 8 October 1864 were an English translation of l'Atto di fratellanza delle Società operaie italiane' (Fraternal Bond Between the Italian Workmen's Associations) published in Il Giornale delle Associazioni Operaie on 31 July 1864 and adopted at the eleventh congress of Italian pro-Mazzini working men's associations in Naples on 27 October 1864. Attended by delegates from 57 organisations, the congress set up an association of Italian workers' societies which joined the International Working Men's Association. By submitting to the International these Statutes, written from bourgeois-democratic positions, Mazzini and his followers sought to take over the leadership of the international working-class movement.
  20. ↑ danger in delay (Livy, History of Rome, Vol. XXXVIII, Chap. 25)
  21. ↑ K. Marx, 'Inaugural Address of the Working Men's International Association'.
  22. ↑ smaller nations
  23. ↑ K. Marx, 'Provisional Rules of the Association'.
  24. ↑ 8 November
  25. ↑ The Bee Hive Newspaper, No. 160, 5 November 1864.
  26. ↑ strong in deed, mild in manner
  27. ↑ In January 1863 an uprising against Tsarist oppression flared up in the Kingdom of Poland, the territory annexed to Russia by decision of the Vienna Congress of 1815. The uprising of 1863-64 was caused by the Poles' striving for national independence and the crisis of feudal relations within the Kingdom. The National Central Committee, which headed the uprising, put forward a programme of struggle for Poland's independence and a number of democratic agrarian demands. However, the inconsistency and indecision of the insurgent government, in particular its failure to abolish the privileges of the big landowners, drove the majority of the peasants away from the uprising. This was one of the main causes of its defeat. In addition, serious damage to the uprising was done by the policy of its Right-wing leaders. They pinned great hopes on help from the ruling circles of Bonapartist France and bourgeois-aristocratic England who were pursuing their own selfish interests in the Polish question. The national liberation uprising was, by and large, crushed by the Tsarist government in the autumn of 1863, though some units of the insurgents continued the struggle until the end of 1864.