Letter to John Malcolm Ludlow, April 10, 1869

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 April 1869


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


MARX TO JOHN MALCOLM LUDLOW[1]

IN LONDON

[London,] 10 April 1869

1 Modena Villas, Maitland Park,
Haverstock Hill, N. W.

Dear Sir,

Being aware of your services to the working class, I should before this have given myself the pleasure of sending you my last work: Das Kapital (2nd and 3d volumes not yet published[2] ), if I had known you to be a German reader.

In your article on Lassalle in the Fortnightly[3] you say first that Lassalle propagated my principles in Germany and say then that I am propagating 'Lassallean principles' in England. This would indeed be what the French call un échange de bons procédés[4] .

In the volume I send you, you will find (Preface, p. VIII, note 1) the plain facts stated viz. that 'Lassalle has taken from my writings almost literally all his general theoretical developments', but that I 'have nothing whatever to do with his practical applications.[5]

His practical nostrum, government aid to co-operative societies, I call by courtesy his. It belongs in fact to, and was zealously preached, at the time of Louis Philippe, by Monsieur Bûchez, Ex-St. Simonian, author of the
Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution Française, glorifying Robespierre and the Holy Inquisi- tion.[6] M. Bûchez put forward his views, f.i. in the journal

L'Atelier, in
opposition to the radical views of the
French communism of that time.

Since you quote my reply to Proudhon: Misère de la Philosophie, you cannot but be aware from its last chapter that in 1847, when all the political economists and all the socialists concurred on one single point—the condemnation of trades' unions, I demonstrated their historical necessity.

Yours truly

Karl Marx J. M. Ludlow, Esq.

  1. ↑ This letter was published in English for the first time in: The Times. Literary Supplement, l.VI. 1967.
  2. ↑ After the first publication of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy appeared in 1859, Marx produced a lengthy economic manuscript throughout 1861-63, which was a second rough draft of Capital (the first was the manuscripts of 1857-58). In 1863, he evolved the final plan for a four-book work, the first three books theoretical and the fourth, a historical and critical one. Having finished work on the manuscripts of 1861-63, Marx began preparing them for the press in August 1863.
    This work from 1863-65 resulted in the third rough draft of Capital, three books of a theoretical character. The notes for the fourth book, the Theories of Surplus-Value, were incorporated in the manuscripts of 1861-63. Later, having completed work on them, Marx went back to the first book. On Engels' advice, he decided it should appear first. Preparation for the press continued throughout 1866 and most of 1867. The first German edition of the first book appeared in September 1867 as Volume One of Capital. Under the plan agreed upon with Meissner, the publisher, the second and third books (devoted to the circulation of capital and the process of capitalist production as a whole) were to appear as Volume Two, while the fourth book on the history of economic theories was to be Volume Three of Capital.
    Marx, however, had not completed the preparation of the last books of Capital for the press. After his death, this was done by Engels, who published Marx's manuscripts relating to the second and third books as volumes Two and Three of Capital (1885 and 1894). Engels also intended to prepare for the press and publish as Volume Four of Capital the above-mentioned manuscript of the fourth book, but did not have time to do this in his lifetime. This edition presents this book of Capital as part of the Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63, (volumes 30-34) while Volumes One, Two and Three of Capital are to be found in volumes 35, 36 and 37 of the present edition respectively.
  3. ↑ J. M. Ludlow, 'Ferdinand Lassalle, the German Social-Democrat', The Fortnightly Review, Vol. V. No. XXVIII, 1 April 1869.
  4. ↑ exchange of good manners
  5. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 35.
  6. ↑ The principle of setting up production associations on the basis of state credit as a means of emancipating the workers from exploitation was first proclaimed by Philippe Bûchez in 1831 in the philosophical journal L'Européen, which he published. His plan was popularised in the 1840s by L'Atelier magazine, which represented the interests and ideas of French handicraftsmen and workers influenced by the doctrine of Christian socialism (see also this volume, p. 260).