Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 3, 1870

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 3 August 1870


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. IV, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 3 August 1870

DEAR FRED,

The unfortunate Oswald has just left a moment ago—7 p.m., and although it is too late to catch the post, I shall write it all down since I do not know whether I might not be prevented by some diversion tomorrow.

The fellow with Blind was Prof. Goldstücker, an old-time National Liberal. The scene became very stormy.0 Student Blind even lied, asserting that Dr Jacoby was on his side (this was for the benefit of the Frenchmen present). On departing the fellows let it be understood, not LITERALLY but by insinuation, that Oswald had been bought by Bonaparte.[1]

This threw POOR Oswald into convulsions. So he came to me. / should sign TO BACK HIM. OTHERWISE, HIS POSITION IN LONDON WOULD BE DANGEROUSLY DAMAGED. He brought a printed copy of the Address with him (just the page proofs).[2] I repeated to him d'abord[3] everything I had said previously. I then read the stuff through—feeble, verbose and—out of courtoisie to the Frenchmen negotiating with him—not a hint at the DEFENSIVE CHARACTER of the WAR on the part of the GERMANS (to say nothing of PRUSSIA). I then proposed that he should drop the whole thing as its effect could not be 'great', since, as I had told him before, in my answer to his first letter,[4] the working class alone could offer active resistance to the national swindle.

He answered: d'abord, a certain number of Frenchmen had already signed and Louis Blanc had declared that he would lend his name (a formula to indicate that he had had no part in composing the Address).

Second, if he did not publish it now, Blind would write the next day in the German papers that he had prevented the publication of this treasonable Address. It would be better to print it.

The last point is right. I must say that I felt sorry for the lad. So I gave him the following ultimatum:

I too would lend my name (and, like Louis Blanc, not actually subscribe) on these two conditions:

1. that a note would be printed under my name saying *'I agree with the above Address so far as its general sentiments coincide with the manifesto issued by the General Council of the "International Working Men's Association".'*[5]

2. that a sentence was added hinting at the DEFENSIVE CHARACTER of the WAR on the GERMAN side, if only in the most unobtrusive and tactful manner.

He accepted these conditions. The next day at 5 p.m. there would be another MEETING in his house, which I would attend.

He then said: Would Engels not sign too with the same reservations as myself?

I said it was a London Address. I was lending my name on certain conditions only out of courtesy to him and wholly against my critical judgment. I saw absolutely no reason why you too should compromise yourself because Oswald had made the mistake of involving ex-student Blind in the affair at all. And there the matter was left.

Incidentally, I had already written to Oswald since Sunday[6] drawing his attention to another manoeuvre of Blind's.[7] / had read in the Rappel a correspondent's report from Frankfurt (quite rational for a change) in which the author was very anti-chauvinistic for a Frenchman. Nevertheless, he remarks against the Germans that the Frankfurter Zeitung[8] had printed a correspondent's report from London according to which the 'French republicans in London had invited all known German republicans to join in a common protest contre cette guerre napoléonienne[9] . The German republicans had refused to do so because on the Prussian side the war was a defensive one.'

This was the work of the ex-student who constantly writes of, to, for and about Karl Blind and his deeds of heroism.

The Pall Mall administration sent me a cheque for 2 V2 guineas yesterday for the first ARTICLE ON WAR[10] (DURING JULY), with the comment that all correspondents are always paid at the end of the month. The younger branche of the Marx family consisting of the ferocious girl[11] and the illustrious Williams[12] have declared 'they should seize upon these first spoils of war as due to them for brokerage'. If you wish to protest, you should act quickly in view of the energetic nature of these 'neutrals'. I enclose a cutting from yesterday's Pall Mall in which they protest against The Times' plagiarism.[13] If the war lasts A CERTAIN TIME, you will soon be acknowledged as the foremost military authority in London.

Despite all the DRAWBACKS the Pall Mall has two advantages:

1. Of the respectable newspapers it is the only one which cultivates a certain opposition to Russia. This may become important as the war progresses.

2. As the GENTLEMEN'S PAPER par excellence it sets the fashion in all the clubs, and particularly the military ones.

3. It is the only non-venal paper in London.

Apropos! Buy a copy of the latest London Illustrated News[14] for the portrait of that scoundrel Brunnow. His face is the very incarnation of Russian diplomacy.

BY THE BY. Disraeli came out with that ridiculous guarantee of Prussian Saxony for Prussia in the Vienna Treaties, using it as the basis for an Anglo-Russian alliance. (He conveniently forgot that the independence of Poland was a condition for that guarantee on England's part.[15] ) This was just a FEELER THROWN OUT. But the Anglo-Russian alliance is actually planned by Gladstone too. The ENGLISH MEMBERS of the INTERNATIONAL really must take energetic action on this. I shall send a letter to the COUNCIL about it FOR NEXT TUESDAY.[16]

The Belgians have proposed the congress be held in Amsterdam on 5 September. This is the plan of Mr Bakunin. The congress would consist chiefly of his TOOLS. I have proposed instead: *Appeal to all the sections whether they think not that, under present circumstances, where the French and German delegates would be excluded from the congress, power should be given to the General Council 1. to postpone the congress; 2. to enable the Council to convoke congress at the moment it shall consider opportune.* This was passed.4

The matter was all the more pressing as we see from the open attack on us in the LAST Solidarité (using our decision on the Swiss matter as a pretext)[17] that Bakunin had taken all his precautionary measures for the Amsterdam Congress. He would have defeated us at the last congress in Basle, had it not been for the German element in Switzerland.[18]

Lopatin has moved to London from Brighton, where he was almost dying of boredom. He is the only 'reliable' Russian I have got to know up to now, and I shall soon succeed in driving his national prejudices out of him. I also learned from him that Bakunin had been spreading the rumour that I was an agent of Bismarck—mirabile dictu[19] l And, c'est vraiment drôle,[20] the same evening (last Tuesday, yesterday), Serraillier told me that Châtelain, MEMBER OF THE FRENCH BRANCH,[21] and a particular friend of Pyat, had even informed the FRENCH BRANCH IN FULL SITTING how much Bismarck had paid me—namely 250,000 francs. If, on the one hand, one is in the French habit of thinking in francs and if, on the other hand, one bears Prussian niggardliness in mind, then this is at least a very decent estimatel Salut

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Napoleon III
  2. ↑ In his letter of 18 July 1870, Eugen Oswald, a German refugee, asked Marx to sign an Address on the Franco-Prussian War drawn up by a group of French and German democratic refugees. The Address was published as a leaflet on 31 July 1870; the editions that followed were signed by Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Bebel and other members of the International. Marx and his associates agreed to sign it on conditions outlined by Marx in his letter to Oswald of 3 August 1870 (see this volume, p. 34). Oswald enclosed with his letter an excerpt from Louis Blanc's letter in which he called for the Address on the Franco-Prussian War to be signed by as many people as possible.
  3. ↑ First of all.
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 9.
  5. ↑ K. Marx, 'First Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco Prussian War'.
  6. ↑ 31 July
  7. ↑ See this volume, p. 28.
  8. ↑ Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt
  9. ↑ against this Napoleonic war
  10. ↑ F. Engels, Notes on the War.— /.
  11. ↑ Eleanor Marx
  12. ↑ Marx's daughter Jenny, who signed her articles on the Irish question with the pseudonym Williams.
  13. ↑ 'Observations of the News', The Pall Mall Gazette, No. 1707, 3 August 1870.
  14. ↑ The Illustrated London News, Vol. LVII, Nos. 1604, 1605, 23 July 1870.
  15. ↑ Speaking in the House of Commons on 1 August 1870, Disraeli dwelt upon the idea of rapprochement between Britain and Russia. He pointed out that they were the only powers to have abided by the provisions of the Vienna Treaty of 1815 which guaranteed Prussia the right to Saxony. Speaking in this connection on the Polish question, Marx had in mind the violation of the terms of the Vienna Treaty concerning the Constitution of the Polish lands. Thus in 1832, following the suppression of the Polish uprising, the tsarist government, with the connivance of the Western powers, abrogated the Constitution in that part of Poland which was annexed to Russia in 1815 as an autonomous region. The same thing happened with regard to the guarantees of the autonomous rights of the Cracow Republic,whose territory was seized by Austria in 1846 after the suppression of the Cracow insurrection.
  16. ↑ This letter by Marx has not been found.
  17. ↑ On 23 July 1870 La Solidarité published the General Council's resolution on the Federal Committee of Romance Switzerland (see Note 9) signed by Hermann Jung, the Council's Corresponding Secretary for Switzerland. The editors of La Solidarité added their comments on the resolution, denying the right of the General Council to decide on this issue.
  18. ↑ The first open clash between the adherents of scientific socialism and the Bakuninists over abolishing the right of inheritance came at the Basle Congress (September 1869). Since none of the proposals produced an absolute majority the Basle Congress did not adopt any resolution on this question.
  19. ↑ wonderful to tell
  20. ↑ this is really funny
  21. ↑ This refers to the French Branch in London, founded in the autumn of 1865. Besides proletarian members (Eugène Dupont, Hermann Jung, Paul Lafargue and others), the Branch also included petty-bourgeois refugees (Victor Le Lubez and later Félix Pyat). In 1868, after the General Council had adopted a resolution proposed by Marx (7 July 1868) condemning Pyat's provocative calls for terrorist acts against Napoleon III (see present edition, Vol. 21, p. 7), a split occurred in the Branch, and its proletarian members resigned. But Pyat's group, having lost virtually all ties with the International, continued to call itself the French Branch in London. It also repeatedly gave support to anti- proletarian elements opposing Marx's line in the General Council. On 10 May 1870 the General Council officially dissociated itself from this group (see present edition, Vol. 21, p. 131).