Letter to Wilhelm Bracke, April 11, 1877

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 11 April 1877


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1939
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE

IN BRUNSWICK

[London,] 11 April 1877

Dear Bracke,

Your title's a good one, except that, instead of 'text' you should put 'original text' or else just 'original', whichever you please.[1]

I am returning the first proof-sheet with this note; it will do, because the little madam,[2] despite her evident annoyance with myself, has stuck pretty accurately to my corrections. But every now and again she makes mistakes which are a bit too much of a good thing. On p. 14 we read: 'As luck would have it, a vague piece of news burst open the doors.' How can a 'piece of news', and a 'vague' one at that, burst open doors? In French it's une vague nouvelle, which should read: 'a fresh wave' (of people) that is!

Moreover, the translation has gone damned slowly up till now. Could you send me an approximate list of works which have appeared in Germany during recent years on the commercial and industrial crisis there[3] ?

What your complaint chiefly calls for is a 'good' doctor. But whatever you do, don't treat the thing too lightly. Easy to cure in the early stages, the illness will become malignant if not dealt with in good time.

Engels is very dissatisfied with the way in which the Vorwärts is printing his anti-Dühring piece.[4] First they forced him into doing it, and now they pay not the slightest heed to the terms of the contract. At election time,[5] when no one did any reading, his articles were simply used to fill up space; next, they print short, disjointed fragments, one fragment one week, another a fortnight or three weeks later, which means that readers (working men in particular) lose the thread. Engels wrote, admonishing Liebknecht.[6] He believes that this way of going about things is deliberate, that there's been intimidation by Mr Dühring's handful of supporters. It would be quite natural if the same blockheads who originally made such a song and dance about the 'deathly silencing of the hollow fool' should now wish to silence his critics. It's all very well for Mr Most to talk about the undue length of the articles. His apology for Dühring,[7] luckily for him never published, was very long indeed, and if Mr Most has failed to note that there's much to be learnt from Engels' positive exposés, not only by ordinary workers and even ex-workers like himself, who suppose themselves capable of getting to know everything and pronounce on everything within the shortest possible time, but even by scientifically educated people, then I can only pity him for his lack of judgment.

With kind regards,

Yours,

K. M.

PS. Mile Kurz translates l'expropriation de toutes les denrées de première nécessité, which means expropriation by the government, or public appropriation, as 'public alienation', which gives completely the wrong sense (p. 16).

Rationnement = being placed on short rations (as in a besieged fortress or on board a vessel when supplies are running out), as 'maintenance of all citizens' (p. 16). She sets down the first word that comes into her head, whether it makes sense or not.

Ditto, p. 16, she translates pour faire lever les provinces, as 'to levy the province'; should read 'to cause the provinces' (not 'province') to rise.

  1. ↑ In his letter to Marx of 9 April 1877 Wilhelm Bracke wrote the following concerning the publication of the German translation of Lissagaray's Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (see notes 194 and 211) that was being prepared at the time: 'I have, as you will see, thought up the title myself, but must admit that I don't like it. What I find particularly displeasing is the note that Lissagaray corrected the text beforehand.'
  2. ↑ Isolde Kurz
  3. ↑ Under the terms of the peace treaty signed after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, France paid 5,000-million-franc reparations to Germany, which contributed to the rapid growth of German economy. The period of feverish business activity, which witnessed the mushrooming of railway, industrial, construction and commercial joint-stock companies, banks and credit and social security companies and was accompanied by large-scale speculation, stock-exchange swindles and machinations, has come to be known as Gründerjahre (or the period of Gründertum). By 1873 it had resulted in a crash followed by an economic crisis, which lasted well into 1877.
  4. ↑ This law also known as Prussian Law (Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preussischen Staaten) was promulgated in 1794. It included criminal, state, civil, administrative and ecclesiastical law and bore the distinct imprint of obsolete feudal legal standards. After the annexation of the Rhine Province to Prussia in 1815, the Prussian government tried to introduce Prussian Law into various legal spheres there to replace the French bourgeois codes in force in the province. This was done by introducing a series of laws, edicts and instructions aimed at restoring the feudal privileges of the nobility (primogeniture), Prussian criminal and marriage law, etc. These measures were resolutely opposed in the province and were repealed after the March revolution by special decrees issued on 15 April 1848.
  5. ↑ A reference to the campaign that preceded the elections to the German Reichstag held on 10 January 1877 (see also notes 237, 246 and 248).
  6. ↑ See next letter.
  7. ↑ Johann Most's manuscript was a panegyric on Eugen Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie, which appeared in 1875. Most's article about Dühring was printed in September-October 1876 in the Berliner Freie Presse under the heading 'Ein Philosoph'.