ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester,] 10 January 1868
Dear Moor,
I wanted to write to you at length today, but the intervention of a Serb and a Wallachian, who held me up for hours, has frustrated my plans. Moreover, yesterday I had a visit from the ex-dictator Amand Goegg, who is travelling for the ridiculous Peace League[1] and who ruined my evening. Luckily, Schorlemmer also happened by, and got the surprise of his life with this fossil of Federal Republic; he had not believed such a thing possible. The stupid oaf has become ten times more stupid through the unthinking repetition of the same phrases, and has lost all points of contact with the world of common sense (not to mention actual thinking). Apart from Switzerland and the Canton of Baden, there is still nothing else in the world for people of this sort. For all that, he soon convinced himself of the truth of your first reply to his application for support: that the further apart we lived and the less we had to do with one another, the better we would get on. He admitted that in the Vogt affair[2] Blind had behaved like a coward, but said he was after all a worthy fellow, and even threatened to reconcile you and Blind! Vogt—no politician, but a worthy fellow, honest to the backbone, who simply scribbled away in the daytime without considering the content—if we 2 spent an hour together then we would be like brothers; he admitted him to be a Bonapartist, but not a paid one. To which I replied that all Bonapartists were paid, there were no unpaid ones, and if he could show me an unpaid one, then I would accept the possibility that Vogt was not paid; otherwise I would not. This astonished him, but finally he discovered one—Ludwig Bamberger] Incidentally, he said that Vogt had continually had a very hard time, his wife was a peasant girl from the Bernese Oberland, whom he had married out of virtue after he had made her a baby. Vogt, the artful dodger, appears to have pulled the wool well over this jackass's eyes. But when Schorlemmer and I explained to him that Vogt had not produced anything as a natural scientist either, you should have seen his rage: Had he not popularised? Was not that worth while?
I shall write something for Vienna as soon as it is in any way possible. Additionally for the Fortnightly,[3] but I would need to know first whether it could be made into a longer article, or should only be a short notice like those at the back of the Fortnightly. Beesly should be sounded out about this[4] ; a short notice would be almost useless and Beesly himself would learn nothing about the book from it.
I shall call Wilhelmchen[5] to account in a few days time about fulfilling the promises he made me: we shall make this little fellow get a move on. I have Richter's address.
Herewith returned Liebknecht, Kugelmann and Siebel. Best greetings.
F. E.
- ↑ The League of Peace and Freedom—a pacifist organisation that was set up in 1867 with the active participation of Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Garibaldi and other democrats. The League owed its origin to the anti-war sentiments of the masses. However, its leaders held pacifist positions; they failed to see the social causes of war and often confined its anti-war activity to mere declarations.
The League's constituent congress was originally scheduled for 5 September 1867 in Geneva. Its organising committee, which enjoyed the support of a number of radical and democratic public figures like John Stuart Mill and the Reclus brothers', also counted on the participation of the leaders of the European proletariat. Therefore the committee sent invitations to the sections of the Internationa] and its leaders, Marx included, to attend the congress. It was also decided to postpone the opening of the congress until 9 September, so that the delegates of the Lausanne Congress of the International (due on 2-8 September) could take part in it too.
The International's attitude towards the League of Peace and Freedom was discussed both in the General Council and in local sections. Marx's speech at the Council meeting of 13 August 1867 and the resolution adopted at his proposal (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 204) formulated the principles of the International's tactics in such a bourgeois-democratic movement. In contrast to the unconditional support of the League, which is what the leaders of the British trade unions inclined towards, the International's tactics envisaged both the joint participation with the democrats in the struggle against the threat of war, provided the class independence of the proletarian organisation was retained, and a revolutionary proletarian approach towards the questions of war and peace in opposition to bourgeois pacifist illusions. Marx believed that the International should not take part in the League's congress on an official basis because that would mean the International's solidarity with its bourgeois programme. However, it was recommended that the International's members should attend the congress privately in order to influence its decisions in a revolutionary-democratic way.
- ↑ Marx is referring to the affidavits made by two London compositors, Wiehe and Vögele, on Blind's authorship of the flysheet Zur Warnung (see Note 48), which exposed Karl Vogt as a Bonapartist agent. Blind cravenly denied his participation in composing the flysheet, thus making Marx's campaign against Vogt's lies more difficult. Marx described Blind's cowardly behaviour both in Herr Vogt (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 128-31 and 318-20) and the statement 'To the Editor of the Stuttgart Beobachter' (Vol. 20).
- ↑ Engels wrote the review of Volume One of Marx's Capital for The Fortnightly Review much later, in May and June 1868. As can be seen from their subsequent correspondence, Marx and Engels exchanged opinions several times on the content and form of the article.
In spite of Professor Beesly's request, the review was rejected by the editorial board and has only been preserved in manuscript form (see present edition, Vol. 20).
- ↑ See this volume, p. 516.
- ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht