Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, April 4, 1876

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 4 April 1876


An extract from this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx, On America and the Civil War. Edited and translated by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1972.
First published in full in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 4 April 1876 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.

(PAY ATTENTION TO THE ADDRESS; IT IS 4 1 NOW

INSTEAD OF 1, BUT SAME STREET)

My dear Friend,

It gave me great pleasure to see your handwriting again at last. My interpretation of your silence was correct, that is to say it tallied with your own explanation. I assure that we over here have also experienced more than enough mudslinging, though it was not done in so brazenly public a manner (and even that wasn't lacking in the early days after the Hague Congress[1] ). But here one might say with Chernyshevsky: 'He who treads the path of history must not be afraid of getting besmirched'.[2]

I sent you the last fifteen livraisons[3] du Capital[4] at the beginning of January, namely on Monday 3 January (I made a note of every copy I sent off at that time, which is why I know the date). However, I'm not surprised that you haven't had them, for no less than three copies consigned to Paris from here did not arrive, and fresh ones had to be sent off. At the beginning of January there is such a HURLY-BURLY in the post office over here that to send anything by post is irresponsible. I shall send you a further fifteen numbers this week. I only regret that you didn't get consignment No. 1, since it is precisely this part, in particular the section on the accumulation process, that I have substantially revised and hence would like you to have read.

Engels and I cannot come to Philadelphia[5] because we have too much work on our hands—I, especially, have even less time to spare inasmuch as my state of health still compels me to lose about 2 months taking the cure at Karlsbad.

We intend to apply ourselves to the Communist Manifesto; but the time is not yet ripe for a decision on the appendix.[6]

And now I have various requests to make of you:

1. Might I have my Tribune articles (ex, I think, Weydemeyer's effects) which had been kept by our friend Meyer[7] before his untimely death. I have got none of them.

2. Could the American book catalogues from 1873 up till the present be sent to me from New York (needless to say at my own expense)? The point is I want to see for myself (for the second volume of Capital) what has appeared that might, perhaps, be of use as regards American agriculture and relations of landownership, ditto as regards credit (panic, money, etc., and anything connected therewith).[8]

3. There is absolutely nothing to be gleaned from the English newspapers about the present scandalous goings-on in the United States. Have you by chance kept any American PAPERS that refer to them?

With warmest regards from all the family.

Totus tuus,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ The Hague Congress (2-7 September 1872) of the International Working Men's Association was the most representative in its history. Present at the congress were 65 delegates from 15 countries. It took stock of the campaign against Bakuninism within the International and mapped out a programme of action suited to the new conditions that had emerged after the Paris Commune. Its main decision was to endorse the London Conference (1871) resolution on the political action of the working class concisely formulated as Art. 7 of the International's Rules. The congress also reached a number of decisions aimed at consolidating the Association's organisational structure. After the congress, the Bakuninists declared their disagreement with its resolutions, causing what amounted to a split in the International. The Hague Congress laid the foundation for future political parties of the working class in various countries.
  2. ↑ Marx is expressing a familiar idea voiced in Nikolai Chernyshevsky's review of the Russian edition of Henry Charles Carey's Letters to the President on the Foreign and Domestic Policy of the Union and Its Effects, as exhibited in the condition of the People and the State: 'The course of history is not the pavement of Nevsky Prospekt... Those who are afraid of getting grimy and dirting their boots, should not take up public work' (Sovremennik, Vol. 85, Part II: 'Contemporary Review', January 1861, p. 51. In Russian).
  3. ↑ instalments of
  4. ↑ the French edition of the first volume of Capital
  5. ↑ The reference is to the celebration of the centenary of the Declaration of Independence (1776) held in Philadelphia on 4 July 1876 at which Sorge was to represent the German socialist section. According to the extract from this letter published by Padover (see publication note above), Tennyson's poem, written on the occasion of the arrival in Britain of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, fiancée of Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was entitled 'A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh, 7 March 1874'; each stanza ended with the word 'Alexandrovna!'.
  6. ↑ The reference is to the publication of the English translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party in the United States of America. As a delegate to the Hague Congress of the International in 1872 Sorge had brought with him the English translation of the Manifesto made by Hermann Meyer and asked Marx and Engels to look it through. They promised to make the necessary additions and corrections, but an excessive workload prevented them from doing so.
  7. ↑ Hermann Meyer
  8. ↑ Following the publication of Part One of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy in 1859 (see present edition, Vol. 29), Marx wrote a lengthy economic manuscript in 1861-63. It was a second rough draft of Capital (the first being the 1857-58 manuscript). In 1863, he definitively decided that the work was to have four books, the first three being theoretical, and the fourth, presenting a historical and critical survey. In August 1863, having completed work on the manuscript of 1861-63, Marx began preparing Capital for the press. This work resulted in a third rough draft of Capital—the Economic Manuscript of 1863-65, consisting of three theoretical books. The draft for the fourth book (Theories of Surplus Value) formed part of the 1861-63 manuscript. Subsequently, Marx returned to the first book. On Engels' advice, Marx decided it would be the first to be published, and was preparing it for the press throughout 1866 and the first half of 1867. The first German edition of the book appeared in September 1867 as Volume One of Capital. Under the plan agreed with the publisher Otto Meissner, the second and third books, analysing the process of circulation of capital and the forms of capitalist process as a whole, were to appear as Volume Two, and the fourth book, dealing with 'the history of economic theories', as the third and final volume of Capital. Marx, however, did not manage to prepare the second and third volumes of Capital for the press. After his death, Engels completed the work and published Marx's manuscripts of the second and third books as Volume Two (1885) and Volume Three (1894). Engels also intended to prepare for the press and publish the above-mentioned manuscript of the fourth book as Volume Four of Capital but died before this plan had been carried out. In the present edition of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels, this book of Capital has been included in the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (vols 30-34), while the first three volumes of Capital make up vols 35-37 respectively.