| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 26 July 1870 |
MARX TO EUGEN OSWALD
IN LONDON
[London,] 26 JULY 1870
1 Maitland Park Road,
Haverstock Hill, N.W.
Dear Sir,
I must first of all ask your forgiveness for my delay in replying to you. Your letter arrived on Thursday[1] at 6 p.m.; I had just left London for a TRIP IN the COUNTRY.
However, I would not have been able to join in a public Address because the General Council of the International Working Men's Association, of which I am a member, had already charged me with the task of composing a similar Address.[2] The piece had been written already, submitted for discussion and was approved unanimously last Tuesday. It was to have appeared in The Times today, but was suppressed, probably because it contained a hit at Russia. However, there is some prospect of its appearing in the Pall Mall Gazette.[3] Paris is now in a state of siege. We have organs at our disposal in all other West European countries and in the United States.
Should the Address be published here you will discover that its political viewpoint (and it is this we are concerned with in the first instance) coincides with your own, however widely our social views may diverge. AT ALL EVENTS, I am convinced that a genuine power of resistance to the return of national antagonisms and the entire system of present-day diplomacy can only be found in the working class.
However that may be, I am quite prepared to have further discussions on this important subject. Please let me know whether and when you might honour me with a visit, or when I can find you at home.
Yours sincerely,
Karl Marx