Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 24, 1878

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 24 September 1878


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 in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN LITTLEHAMPTON

[London,] 24 September 1878

DEAR FRED,

Herewith a scrawl from Liebknecht[2] ; I opened the letter because I thought it might contain news of the party which would perhaps call for immediate action on our part.

I should be grateful if you would send back Lavrov's letter by return; it arrived today and has not yet been answered. The only interesting thing about it is the passage relating to Wrôblewski,— probably correct, as it is in keeping with his temperament as homme d'action[3] and is, moreover, plus ou moins[4] confirmed by his silence where we are concerned.

After the opening of the Reichstag, I received the Bill submitted to the same by the government, together with the preamble[5] ; yesterday, from the same quarter (Bracke) I likewise received the stenographic report of the Reichstag sittings of 16 and 17 September.[6] One has little conception—even at this stage—either of the AVERAGE Prussian minister's stupidity and his master's[7] 'ingenuity', or of the nastiness of his hangers-on, the representa- tives of the true-blue German bourgeoisie—until one sees before one the stenographic report of this, its most recent manifestation. I am to some extent occupied in making extracts from it for the English press, but I'm not yet sure whether it's quite what I want for The Daily News.[8]

The Russians' ploy in Afghanistan,[9] like the INCIDENTS in Turkey—all this is of little interest to me now except in so far as it provides argumentum ad hominem[10] in regard to European statecraft. I am, besides, convinced that nothing Russia, and Prussia INTO THE BARGAIN, can now do on the international stage can have other than pernicious consequences for their regime, nor can it delay the latter's downfall, but only expedite its violent end.

My wife, Jennychen and Johnny arrived here safe and sound on Friday[11] afternoon and the whole company took up quarters with us until yesterday evening when Jennychen removed, lock, stock and barrel, to Leighton Grove[12] so as to be there to receive Longuet. But the big man won't be arriving till this evening. The child is much better and, miraculously enough, Jennychen also recovered somewhat during the last few days of her stay in Malvern.

Yesterday old Petzler called in with a letter from a parson[13] who edits a magazine, also DABBLES IN SOCIALISM and wants SOME INFORMATION from me.[14] Meanwhile Bismarck has again succeeded in placing socialism à l'ordre du jour[15] so that even la haute politique[16] is in consequence plus ou moins lost from view.

Hoping that Mother Nature is assisting your recovery, and with love from Tussy, Jennychen and my wife.

Your

Moor

  1. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx, On Revolution. Translated by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1971.
  2. ↑ In his letter to Engels of 22 September 1878, Liebknecht expressed his condolences on the death of Lizzie Burns.— 331.
  3. ↑ See this volume, pp. 327-28.
  4. ↑ Ibid., p. 328.
  5. ↑ A reference to the Anti-Socialist Law. The discussion of the bill began in the Reichstag on 16 September 1878 (see Note 462).
  6. ↑ Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags. 4. Legislaturperiode. I. Session 1878, Vol. I, Berlin, 1878, pp. 29-91.
  7. ↑ Bismarck's
  8. ↑ A reference to the following passage in the second German edition of Volume One of Capital: 'And, as a matter of fact, the value also of each single yard is but the materialised form of the same definite and socially fixed quantity of homogeneous human labour' (see also K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Part I, Chapter III, Section 2, present edition, Vol. 35).
  9. ↑ As a threat of an armed conflict with Britain emerged in the course of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the tsarist government agreed on an alliance with Afghanistan. The Russian envoy Stoletov, who arrived in Kabul on 22 June 1878, made arrangements with the country's rulers for a Russo-Afghan treaty. However, having settled the Anglo-Russian differences, the tsarist government decided against such an alliance.
  10. ↑ argument based on facts
  11. ↑ 20 September
  12. ↑ the street in London where the Longuets lived
  13. ↑ Moritz Kaufmann
  14. ↑ Marx's letters to the British clergyman Moritz Kaufmann of 3 and 10 October 1878 are replies to the latter's request that he look through Kaufmann's article about himself, which was to appear in the Leisure Hour magazine in December 1878 and to be included in a book on the history of socialism he was preparing for publication. Kaufmann's book Utopias; or, Schemes of Social Improvement. From Sir Thomas More to Karl Marx came out in London in 1879. Marx read through the last two chapters.
  15. ↑ on the agenda
  16. ↑ high politics