Letter to Karl Marx, August 23, 1871

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 23 August 1871


First published in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931. Printed according to the original. Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO MARX

IN BRIGHTON

London, 23 August 1871

Dear Moor,

In great haste. Enclosed B/57 68868, London, 27 July 1871, £5. Stay there as long as you can; it will do you more good than to come here. The girls won't be coming this week after all.[1]

According to the Pall Mall Lafargue too is at liberty.[2]

Lessner says that the Lassalleans have resolved to sue you if they do not receive the money next week![3]

[4]

Frankel is here and was elected a member of the GENERAL COUNCIL yesterday, along with Chalain and Bastelica. He was here today with Rochat; does not seem to be a high-flyer.

Allsop was in the COUNCIL yesterday and gave me the sum of 5 shillings for you for the refugees. He is leaving town once more and will be writing to you again. In the crush there was of course no chance to speak with the deaf man in more detail.

Jung's letter saying that I should launch an appeal to the Yankees came yesterday at 7 p.m., i.e. too late. It was resolved that you should be charged with formulating the appeal[5] and despatching it by STEAMER next Saturday.[6] If you can't, I could do something of the sort; the enclosed letter proves that it would be worth it. Yesterday between £2 and £3 came in altogether!

The whole meeting[7] was used once more for the following debate: Weston, Hales, Applegarth and another of our Englishmen had been invited by George Potter to a meeting at which Dr Engländer (!) was also present. Potter produced the information that Sir Edward Watkin had made an agreement with the Canadian government according to which the Versailles prisoners would be sent to Canada where they would each be given 1 ACRE of land—presumably Thiers is behind it in order to get rid of them. Weston was enthusiastically in favour, il radote de plus en plus[8] In the end Longuet, Theisz and Vaillant moved the next item on the agenda—it was quite well done.

I am overrun from morning till night; can't even manage to read a newspaper, and at this very moment there is someone waiting for me downstairs again. To cap it all my brothers[9] are due to come too.

Salut.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Towards the end of April 1871 Marx's daughters Jenny and Eleanor set out for Bordeaux to visit Laura and Paul Lafargue; in June all of them moved to Bagnères-de-Luchon. Early in August, fearful of persecution, Lafargue left for Spain and Laura followed him. Jenny and Eleanor were arrested in Luchon and later expelled from France. On this see K. Marx, 'Letter to the Editor of The Sun, Charles Dana' and Jenny Marx's Letter to the Editor of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly (present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 396-99, 622).
  2. ↑ Early in August 1871 Lafargue had to flee to Spain in order to escape persecution by the Versailles Government. On 11 August he was arrested in Huesca on the orders of the Thiers government, but released 10 days later.
  3. ↑ Marx wrote this letter to Theodor Koll, treasurer of the German Workers' Educational Society in London (see Note 135), in connection with the slander campaign which the Lassallean elements in the Society were conducting against him. They alleged that Marx had embezzled money collected by the Society for the striking tailors in Pest. Early in August 1871 Marx temporarily withdrew from the Society. In December 1871 the Lassalleans were expelled.
  4. ↑ 23 August; see also previous letter.
  5. ↑ The Appeal to members of the American sections of the International to raise money for the Paris Commune refugees was written by Marx and sent to Sorge, as can be seen from Marx's letter to Sorge of 5 September (see this volume, p. 211). The text of the Appeal has not been found.
  6. ↑ 26 August
  7. ↑ the meeting of the General Council held on 22 August 1871
  8. ↑ He is falling into his dotage.
  9. ↑ Hermann and Rudolf Engels