Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 13, 1865

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 13 March 1865


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 13 March 1865

Dear Engels,

There are mistakes in your financial statement, viz. you sent me £235 on 8 June, £350 at the beginning of July (the letter enclosing the money isn't dated, but I can tell from a letter of 5 July which said it was about to be sent) and £200 on 9 November 1864; on the other hand, the last £40 itemised on the statement you said would eventually follow (in the enclosed letter dated 9 November) but you never sent it. I hope that you will be able to convince yourself of this on checking your books again, and if so, that you will send me the money by return of post, before I leave for the continent (with my NIECE[2] ), which will probably be at the end of this week.177

With regard to Schweitzer's brazenness, I have decided on a different course. There are some things about which one would be glad to enlighten the public but can only do so in response to direct provocation, and then one must not miss the OPPORTUNE TIME OF A REPLY. And such is the case with Schweitzer's comments connected with the garbage from Blind.[3] I intend to reply in the Düsseldorfer Zeitung actually on behalf of both of us, but I shall sign in my name alone, as it would be ludicrous to imply you shared responsibility for 'Achilles',[4] and as I shall be quoting mainly (exclusively, if my plan works out) from Schweitzer's letters to me anyway.

My plan therefore is this: Schweitzer is reproducing, in print, the lies put out by the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung, knowing them to be lies. (Is the article in the form of an editorial in the paper, or what?) Viz.: 1. neither Lassalle's name nor any mention of Lassalle appeared in the prospectus we received 'printed as manuscript'. (Liebknecht had prevented that.) 2. In note of 30 December Schweitzer most humbly asks my pardon for so brazenly using passage from private letter of condolence, as both introduction and conclusion to his hymn of adulation. 3. By means of short extracts from Schweitzer's letters from 30 December 1864 to 15 February 1865 (his last letter), I shall show that the conflict over tactics was a lasting one from the first, trial number[5] right up until we announced our withdrawal,[6] and was by no means a quarrel suddenly picked, as man-of-honour Schweitzer pretends, with his support for Blind's shit. At the same time, this little mosaic of excerpts from Schweitzer's letters will show with what servility this selfsame brute behaved towards us, until he suddenly turned vicious on being kicked. This will make salutory reading for bourgeois and workers alike (and for Rüstow). All in all, good introduction for the break with 'Lassalleanism', which is in any case inevitable. (Of course, as far as student Blind is concerned, if that water-newt should ever COME OUT again, I shall always treat Lassalle as a dead lion set beside a live ass. It is indecent that such an 'uneducated' Baden publican should even presume to put himself on a level with a man who has studied Heraclitus and the Roman law of inheritance.)

Let me know by return if you approve of my plan, as I can't afford to lose any time.[7] (And don't forget to tell me in what form Blind's twaddle appeared in the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung.) In my opinion, it's necessary.

Although, unlike you, I don't have the pleasure of corresponding with the Too-Clever-By-Half,[8] nor of being able to foul his nest for him, nevertheless I've been infernally HARASSED just recently, quite apart from the furuncles, which won't go away; e.g., last night I didn't get to bed until 4 o'clock in the morning.

Besides my work on the book,[9] the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION takes up an enormous amount of time, as I am IN FACT the HEAD of it. And what a waste of time! (And it would come just now, with the French business and the election business here, etc., all at the same time.) E.g. the French shit:

28 February. Tolain and Fribourg here from Paris. Meeting of the CENTRAL COUNCIL, where they state their case and bicker with Le Lubez until 12 o'clock at night. Then reconvene in Bolleter's tavern, where I had another 200 odd cards to sign. (I have now got them to change this stupid practice by having our handwriting engraved on the plate, and only the GENERAL SECRETARY[10] signs by hand. Meanwhile, the remaining 1,000 cards OF THE OLD EDITION had to be signed IN THE OLD STYLE.)

1 March. Polish MEETING.[11]

4 March. SUBCOMMITTEE[12] meeting about the French question until 1 o'clock in the morning.

6 March. SUBCOMMITTEE meeting about ditto until 1 o'clock in the morning.

7 March. SITTING OF THE CENTRAL COUNCIL until 12 o'clock at night. Resolutions passed (I enclose resolutions, along with the private instructions which the CENTRAL COUNCIL is sending to Schily, who, as you can see from resolution V, has been appointed CENTRAL COUNCIL DELEGATE (AMBASSADOR) AT Paris.) (This meeting of 7 March, in which Le Lubez was utterly culbuté[13] , was very embarrassing and stormy, and left the English in particular with the impression THAT THE FRENCHMEN STAND REALLY IN NEED OF A BONAPARTE!) In between times, people dashing this way and that to see me in connection with the conference with Bright which was held last Saturday (11 March), etc. Reported briefly on same to Jones (he had enquired beforehand about it on Friday), instructed him to convey the letter to you.[14]

WELL, mon cher, que faire?[15] He who says 'A' must also say 'B'. You will see from the enclosed Nordstern (SEE THE 2 FIRST LEADERS) that, despite his hatred for us, Bruhn immediately seized the opportunity to attack Schweitzer, out of sheer professional jealousy.[16] This is most important since Bruhn's paper is of longer standing, and this has at least sowed dissension in the camp of these fellows themselves. A short notice about your pamphlet will appear in Bender's Anzeiger[17] this week. I sent one to the Hermann (Juch), saying he should form his own opinion of it, etc.a This he will do. I chose this approach because with Juch I'd always poked fun at the notices sent to the Hermann by Blind, for Blind and about Blind, and the two of us here are generally regarded as one person.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in Karl Marx, On the First International. Arranged and edited, with an introduction and new translations by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1973.
  2. ↑ Caroline Schmalhausen
  3. ↑ In its issue No. 31 of 8 March 1865, Der Social-Demokrat published the statement by Georg Herwegh and Friedrich Wilhelm Rüstow of their refusal, following Marx and Engels, to contribute to this newspaper. Commenting on the statement, Schweitzer distorted Marx's and Engels' attitude to Lassalle and falsified the reasons for their withdrawal from the editorial board of Der Social-Demokrat. To prove that Marx and Engels were allegedly inconsistent and their actions unjustified, Schweitzer quoted Karl Blind's article published in the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung, No. 64, 5 March 1865.
  4. ↑ In his comments on the statement of Herwegh and Rüstow, Schweitzer quoted Blind's article (see Note 173) mentioning the following passage from Marx's private letter of condolence to Sophie von Hatzfeldt, written on 12 September 1864 on the occasion of Lassalle's death: 'He died young, at a time of triumph, as an Achilles' (see present edition, Vol. 41, p. 563). These words taken from the letter, without Marx's knowledge and consent, were published in Der Social-Demokrat, No. 1, 15 December 1864, over his signature and were used to extol Lassalle. In due time Marx lodged a protest against this breach of ethics on Schweitzer's part.
  5. ↑ of 15 December 1864
  6. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'To the Editor of the Social-Demokrat.'
  7. ↑ Marx realised his intention by writing, on 15 March 1865, the 'Statement Regarding the Causes of the Breach with the Social-Demokrat.' It was published in the Berliner Reform (No. 67) on 19 March 1865 (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 87-90).
  8. ↑ Gottfried Ermen, Engels' partner
  9. ↑ Capital
  10. ↑ William Cremer
  11. ↑ The meeting to mark the anniversary of the Polish insurrection of 1863-64 was held in St Martin's Hall, London, on 1 March 1865. It was initiated by the British National League for the Independence of Poland (see Note 97), and the Central Council of the International contributed much to preparing and conducting it (see Note 161). The British bourgeois press, the London liberal Daily News included, covered the speeches Beales, Leverson and other bourgeois radicals made at the meeting, but passed over in silence a resolution submitted on behalf of the International and the speeches of Peter Fox and Georg Eccarius, the Central Council members. A full report of the meeting appeared in The Bee-Hive Newspaper (No. 177) on 4 March 1865, and Marx used it when writing his notice entitled 'A Correction' and intended for the Zurich Der weiße Adler, which reproduced a garbled report from the British newspapers (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 97-98).
  12. ↑ 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.
  13. ↑ overturned
  14. ↑ 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.
  15. ↑ what is to be done, my dear fellow?
  16. ↑ In its issue No. 299 of 4 March 1865, the Nordstern, published by Karl Bruhn, carried two leading articles in which the editors came out against any compromise with the government and described people of Schweitzer's type as intriguers.
  17. ↑ Londoner Anzeiger, 17 March 1865