Letter to Hermann Meyer, around August 25, 1871

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 25 August 1871


First published in The World, No. 3687, 21 September 1871
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO HERMANN MEYER

IN WASHINGTON

[Brighton, around 25 August 1871]

We are greatly in want of money... The affaire of the Commune increased our duties and obligations, while the war preceding it cut off our Continental supplies. We are now almost overwhelmed with letters from different parts of this country (England), from people wanting information about the International, and sections are being established in the provinces. There are also Irish sections in the course of formation, and we now have an Irish secretary on the Council in the person of MacDonnel,[1] of Fenian notoriety.6 Besides that, we have had applications from the East Indies and New Zealand.

The Paris Federal Council is to be reorganised. After all Thiers has caught but very few of our men. There is not a prominent member of our association amongst all his prisoners, and there are but two or three missing, who must have been killed in the last days of fighting, as we cannot get either tale or doings of them. Many who were reported over and over again as shot, even detailed accounts given, have turned up again, and are now safely here[2] or in Switzerland.

There is great distress among the refugees here, and between fifty and sixty are without the means of subsistence. Money comes in very slowly. There is to be an appeal issued to your working-men[3] which we trust will be liberally responded to.

  1. ↑ In the original: MacDonald.
  2. ↑ in England
  3. ↑ Marx sent to Paul and Laura Lafargue a clipping from Der Volksstaat, No. 59, 23 July 1870, with a report from Berlin which quoted the declaration made by Bebel and Liebknecht in the Reichstag on 21 July 1870. He may also have enclosed the 'Politische Uebersicht' column from the same issue, dealing with the attitude of the German working class to the Franco-Prussian War. On Bebel's and Liebknecht's declaration in the Reichstag see Note 31.