Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 3, 1877

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 3 March 1877


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO ENGELS

IN BRIGHTON

[London,] 3 March 1877

DEAR FRED,

I am sending you the things from Leipzig I found at your house,[1] together with the Plebe. As to the important declaration by the federation of Italia alta[2] in which they state that they have always abided by the 'original Rules' of the International, and officially disassociate themselves from any actual federative link with the Italian Bakuninist groups,[3] you must see that the

Vorwärts gets this as soon as possible, along with the other very interesting, and to me highly welcome, facts contained in the first letter[4] you sent me.[5] Otherwise Liebknecht will contrive to make nonsense of this affair too.

I've been very unwell of late, with a chronic cold, catarrh and cough.

ALL RIGHT about Lina.[6]

Lavrov, who is going through a damned bad period, has praised your anti-Dühring articles, though one (i.e., he) 'is unaccustomed to such gentleness in Engels' polemics'.

You will be getting a longer missive[7] from me some time next Monday[8] . Do not regard this as a Dühringian manoeuvre of always making promises one never sticks to—namely doing something.

Kindest regards to Lizzy.

Your

K. Marx

Devil take Hirsch and his Castelnau. The latter has now asked me on behalf of them both to figure as a contributor to a working men's paper which they already have in hand. As if I had the time for that—and Hirsch must surely know that I haven't any! The mere fact of my name appearing, however, would make me needlessly 'responsible'. Because Mr Castelnau himself now admits that, so long as Quest is in charge, his abrégé[9] will belong to the Land of Nod, it seems he is going to thrash me in some other way. I have yet to see either him or Hirsch lift so much as a finger on behalf of Capital, unlike Laveleye or Block.[10]

  1. ↑ See previous letter.
  2. ↑ Northern Italy
  3. ↑ On 26 February 1877, La Plebe published three resolutions passed by the second congress of the Federation of Northern Italy under the heading of 'Congresso Socialista di Milano'. Marx is referring to Resolution III.
  4. ↑ See this volume, pp. 198 200.
  5. ↑ Engels used the article 'Congresso Socialista di Milano' carried by La Plebe when working on his article 'From Italy' published by the Vorwärts, No. 32, 16 March 1877 (see present edition, Vol. 24).
  6. ↑ Caroline Schöler
  7. ↑ Enclosed in Marx's letter TO ENGELS of 5 March 1877 were Marx's 'Randnoten zu Dührings Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie. The manuscript, which contains a critical analysis of the first three sections of the second edition of Dühring's book, was used by Engels as the basis for Chapter X, 'From Kritische Geschichte', of Part II of his Anti-Dühring (see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 211-43).
  8. ↑ 5 March
  9. ↑ summary (of the first volume of Capital)
  10. ↑ See this volume, p. 194.