MARX TO P. LE NEVE FOSTER, ESQ.[1]
Manchester,[2] 28 May 1869
I have to thank You for your letter offering me to be proposed as a member of the Society of Art[3] and beg to say in reply that I shall feel obliged if You will be kind enough to do so at an early opportunity.
I am, Sir, Your obedient servant
Karl Marx[4]
- ↑ This letter was published for the first time in the article of D.G.C. Allan, 'The Red Doctor amongst the Virtuosi: Karl Marx and the Society', brought out by The Royal Society of Arts Journal, London, 1981, Vol. CXXIX, Nos. 5296-5297, pp. 259-61, 309-10. The original is kept in the Archive of the Greater London Library (Greater London Council).
- ↑ Marx's letter was addressed to London from Manchester, where he and his daughter Eleanor were staying with Engels between 25 May and 14 June 1869.
- ↑ In May 1869, Peter le Neve Foster, Secretary of the Society of Arts and Trades Board of Directors, sent out letters to a number of persons, including Marx, requesting their consent to be elected to the Society. Marx's letter of 28 May 1869 was a reply to this proposal. On 30 June 1869, the Society's general meeting considered 132 candidatures and took a vote, as a result of which Marx was elected a member. To be admitted, a person had to have three members, at least one being his personal acquaintance, to back his candidature. For Marx, this was Peter Lund Simmonds, a Dane residing in England, a well-known political writer and author of numerous works on botany and agriculture.
Marx's admittance to the Society of Arts and Trades signified recognition by British scientific quarters of his merits as a scholar and political writer.
The Society of Arts and Trades, which was founded in 1754, set itself the philanthropic and educational goal of 'promoting the arts, trades and commerce'. Its social composition was varied: its managing bodies included both members of the aristocracy, patrons of the Society, and representatives of a broad cross-section of bourgeoisie and bourgeois intellectuals; among the members were also representatives of trade unions. In the 1860s, the Society's membership was in excess of 4,000.
In 1853-54, as the mass strike movement began to grow, the Society tried to act as an intermediary between the workers and the manufacturers seeking to take the edge off the class struggle. Marx sharply criticised this position and even called the organisation the ' "Society of Arts" and tricks' (see present edition, Vol. 12. p. 612).
Marx's admission to the Society gave him greater access to scientific literature to be found in the Society's library, including its extremely large collection of works by the 17th-19th century economists. Many of them he used when working on Capital. He was particularly interested in recent research in the field of economics and natural sciences, specifically, chemistry and agriculture, whose results were published in the Society's journal. Marx used the materials of the journal for 1859, 1860, 1866 and 1872 in Volume One of Capital (the first and second editions) (see present edition, Vol. 35).
- ↑ Written across Marx's letter were the words which meant that Marx had signed a written commitment to observe the Rules and Regulations of the Society. In the bottom right corner, by Marx's signature, his name and academic degree (Ph. D.) are written again in a more legible hand.