Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, October 7, 1876

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 7 October 1876


First published, in Russian, in Letopisi marksizma, Book V, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV

IN LONDON

[London,] 7 October 1876

My dear Friend,

I have just received a letter from Paris (from an employee[1] at Lachatre's booksellers) from which it transpires that the banning of Capital[2] is simply a myth, a myth, moreover, assiduously disseminated by the police and by Mr Quest himself, the judicial administrator appointed by the late Buffet as sequestrator of Lachatre's booksellers.[3]

Because it had been published under the state of siege, Capital—now that the state of siege has been raised—could only be banned by the regular courts, and the authorities fear a scandal of this kind. So they are seeking to suppress the book by underhand methods of intrigue.

You would greatly oblige me by advising me of the contents of the letter in which your agent Guyot mentions the banning of the book.[4] Kovalevsky, for his part, has Russian friends in Paris prepared to attest that even Lachatre's booksellers has refused to sell them the work.

Armed with these proofs I shall be able to threaten Mr Quest—a great miser, albeit a millionaire—with legal proceedings and a demand for damages and interest. It is only through the force of such threats that he has finally ordered the printing of the last fifteen instalments.[5] Under French law he is, vis-à-vis myself, merely Mr Lachatre's representative, his deputy, and must fulfil all the conditions laid down in my contract with the latter.

Last September's Revue des deux Mondes contains a so-called critique of Capital by Mr Laveleye.[6] Only by reading it can one get any idea of the idiocy of our bourgeois 'thinkers'. Mr Laveleye is, however, naive enough to admit that, once you accept the doctrines of Adam Smith and Ricardo or even—horribile dictu[7] —those of the Careys and the Bastiats, there is no means of escaping the subversive doctrines of Capital.

I congratulate you on your LEADING ARTICLE in Vpered! on Pan-Slav lyricism in Russia.[8] It is not only a masterpiece, it is above all a great act of moral courage.

Yours ever,

Karl Marx

How is Smirnov's health progressing?

  1. ↑ presumably from Henri Oriol
  2. ↑ the French edition of the first volume of Capital
  3. ↑ Under the contract signed by Marx and Maurice Lachâtre in February 1872 (see Note 17), the French edition of the first volume of Capital was to appear in instalments. The delay in the publication, which took four years (1872-75), was caused, alongside the circumstances mentioned in this letter, by the growth of political reaction following the Paris Commune. In mid-1875, the French government transferred legal rights over Lachâtre's publishing house in Paris to Adolph Quest, an official who procrastinated with the printing of the last instalments of Capital and did his best to obstruct its dissemination.
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 440.
  5. ↑ This letter from Marx to George Moore, like that of 28 March, dealt with the business of the firm holding a patent for engraving work; the partners were Paul Lafargue, Benjamin Le Moussu and George Moore. In late summer 1873, Lafargue withdrew from the firm and Marx took his place. The firm fell apart in the spring of 1874.
  6. ↑ E. de Laveleye, 'Le socialisme contemporain en Allemagne. I. Les théoriciens' Revue des deux Mondes, Vol. 17, Paris, 1876.
  7. ↑ dreadful to relate
  8. ↑ [P. L. Lavrov,] 'Русскіе передъ южно славянскимъ вопросомъ', Vpered!, No. 42, 1 October 1876.