Letter to Sigmund Schott, July 15, 1878

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 15 July 1878


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO SIGMUND SCHOTT

IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN

[London,] 15 July 1878

Dear Friend,

I got your letter on the very day I had already sent you a brief note[1] by a roundabout route.

In your last letter but one (of 30 June), you asked me nothing save whether some of the comments in the German press on my first epistle to The Daily News[2] had reached me. Answer: no.

I would not dream of dedicating a 'book' to Mr Bucher. He owes me an answer to my 30 lines.[3] I have neither the time nor any reason to supply the 3,000 lines he deems necessary in place of his own.[4] This fable is the progeny of the London correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung, he, so far as I am aware, being Dr Elard Biscamp, a notorious blackguard.[5] This time, however, his bad joke has come off.

The state of my health bids me go to Karlsbad. But Mr Bismarck, who was so urgently bidden to go to Kissingen, doesn't want me to.[6] что делать? (que faire?), as the Russians say.[7]

Look round for a makeshift in the shape of a British seaside resort not as yet under the aegis of the new Holy Alliance's[8] saviours of society. My wife is seriously ill and will probably have to go to Karlsbad; it seems unlikely that her ex-ladyship, the ex-Baroness von Westphalen, will be regarded as contraband.

I trust your trip will do you good. Should you spend any length of time in one place, you might write to me from there. I shall probably have an article of mine in English (not yet printed)[9] to send you which, however, will have absolutely nothing to do with the good FATHERLAND, AS THE ENGLISH CALL IT.

With kindest regards,

Yours,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ See previous letter.
  2. ↑ K. Marx, F. Engels, Herr Bucher.
  3. ↑ K. Marx, 'Reply to Bucher's "Declaration"'.
  4. ↑ In his 'Declaration' concerning Marx's and Engels' letter to the editor of The Daily News (see Note 397), Lothar Bucher stated that it would take 3,000 lines to refute Marx's 30.
  5. ↑ On 9 July 1878, the London correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung had a statement printed in which, referring to allegedly 'verified sources', he asserted that Marx had intended to answer Bucher's 'Declaration' in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (see Note 397) with a whole book entitled Herr Bucher.
  6. ↑ Bismarck spent July and August 1874 at Bad Kissingen where an assassination attempt was made on him on 13 July. It was organised by the Catholic clergy enraged by the Kulturkampf policy he was pursuing (see Note 35). Bismarck was wounded by a shot fired by the artisan Kullmann.
  7. ↑ An allusion to the novel by Nikolai Chernyshevsky (What Is to Be Done?), which appeared in French in Lodi, Italy, in 1875.
  8. ↑ Marx is referring to the so-called alliance of three emperors which came into being at the conference of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian emperors in Berlin in September 1872. It was an attempt to resurrect the reactionary Holy Alliance founded by Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1815.
  9. ↑ K. Marx, 'Mr. George Howell's History of the International Working Men's Association'.