Letter to Friedrich Engels, April 5, 1869

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 5 April 1869


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 5 April 1869

DEAR FRED,

I can't make anything of your snieunt (I can't read the following letters) jown[1] According to the etymology, I can only explain lucus a non lucendo[2] that in Danish snoe means turn, and jeon means EVEN.

I congratulate you on the energy with which you have cut the umbilical cord with Dover Street.[3]

Laura is quite well again. Jenny will be coming home tomorrow or the day after 'for business reasons'. Tussy will stay in Paris for at least 2 months. As you will note from the enclosed letter, she is absolutely delighted with Fouschtra,[4] the YOUNGSTER of the Lafargue FAMILY.

The Wilhelm-Bebel-Schweitzer clash of words has not really been so bad; after all, when of 11,000 voters, 4,500 abstained from voting for Schweitzer, this was not exactly a triumph for this gentleman.[5]

With regard to the Citizen, the contributors to which include Dr Engel of Berlin and Dr Brentano of the same, this appears to be stillborn or, as OLD Werner says, 'laid out'. Lloyd Jones is an old tailor by trade, who figured in a STRIKE back in 1824. For a long time now he has been an apostle of cooperation, and a lazy-bones. Odger and Applegarth are both possessed by a mania for mediation and a longing for respectability. On the CENTRAL COUNCIL, we ticked off Mr Applegarth properly.[6] With regard to Odger's collaboration in particular, it never went further than the prospectus, and here people simply laugh at such PROMISSORY BILLS on his part.

In 2 issues the Bonapartist Peuple (directly edited with Boustrapa[7] ) denounces our International because of the recent exercises of terrorism in Geneva[8] (on the occasion of the typographers' STRIKE[9] ), and, at the same time, makes mocking remarks about our impotence. It would naturally be very good to keep the volcanic explosion on such a small but conspicuous stage, if the means were available. But to drag in the International so directly, as Becker[10] and Co. are doing, without preparation, without thinking about a war-chest, without taking into consideration the good or bad state of business in Europe—this is simply compromising. I shall send you the relevant numbers of Peuple after I have presented them to the COUNCIL tomorrow.

Oberwinder has sent me the prospectus of his paper[11] for subscription. It appears twice a month, and costs 45 kreuzer per quarter. If I send the list back with subscriptions, 1 copy for you, 1 copy for Moore, 1 for Borkheim and 1 for me, we shall have to send the total sum of 3 gulden. You can't send the money individually, I mean for one COPY.

Enclosed Lanterne and Cloche and Werker. Do send me copies of Zukunft, so that I can see something about the Reichstag.

And also, if possible, Manchester papers containing arguments about the price of cotton. The Liberal M.P. from Manchester[12] is supposed to be agitating or spreading agitation amongst the workers in Stockport so that they should demand, directly from the GOVERNMENT, cotton production in India, that is, PROTECTION IN ANOTHER FORM.

COMPLIMENTS to MRS Lizzie ON RESTORATION OF HEALTH. Salut.

Your

Moor

I hope your eye inflammation has passed.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 247, and 251.
  2. ↑ Literally: 'a grove from not being light'. The expression, first used by Quintilian in De institutione oratoria (I, 6, 34), illustrates the practice ascribed to ancient Roman etymologists of deriving words from their semantic opposites, as lucus ('grove') from lucere ('to shine, be light') because a grove is not light.
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 251.
  4. ↑ Charles Etienne Lafargue
  5. ↑ A reference to the dispute between Liebknecht, Bebel and Schweitzer at the congress of the General Association of German Workers held in Barmen-Elberfeld on 28-31 March 1869 (see Note 311). Bebel and Liebknecht accused Schweitzer of having contacts with the Bismarck Government and of attempts to prevent the formation of a united workers' party in Germany. The congress showed that Schweitzer's authority had been undermined: 14 delegates representing 4,635 of the Association's members refused to give him a vote of confidence, while 42 delegates with 7,400 votes gave such a vote. The congress adopted a number of resolutions aimed at restricting Schweitzer's dictatorial powers and making the internal life of the Association more democratic: in addition to the President, it was to be headed by a board of twelve members and its seat was to be in Hamburg. A proposal was moved to convene a Social-Democratic congress in Germany with a view to 'founding a united organisation'. On Schweitzer's suggestion, it was resolved to establish closer contacts with the International to the extent permitted by the German law. In fact, however, the Association's leadership continued to pursue a sectarian policy and obstruct the affiliation of the Association with the International.
  6. ↑ Marx is probably referring to a General Council meeting of 1 December 1868, which discussed the question of workers' participation in the campaign to organise the reception for the American Ambassador in London, Reverdy Johnson (see Note 259).
  7. ↑ Boustrapa—nickname of Louis Bonaparte, composed of the first syllables of the names of the cities where he staged putsches: Boulogne (6 August 1840), Strasbourg (30 October 1836), and Paris (coup d'état of 2 December 1851, which culminated in the establishment of a Bonapartist dictatorship).
  8. ↑ Ch. Gaumont, 'La grève à Genève', Le Peuple, 29 and 30 March 1869.
  9. ↑ A printers' strike in Geneva began in March 1869 when the owners of printing presses refused to raise the workers' wages, for which the latter had been campaigning for ten years. The strike was headed by the Romance Federal Committee and the International's sections in Geneva which secured financial support for the strikers from workers in Switzerland, France, Germany and Italy. For a detailed account of the strike, see Marx's 'Report of the General Council to the Fourth Annual Congress of the International Working Men's Association' (present edition, Vol. 21, p. 71).
  10. ↑ Johann Philipp Becker
  11. ↑ Die Volksstimme
  12. ↑ Thomas Bazley