Letter to Friedrich Engels, November 11, 1882

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 11 November 1882


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
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 46


MARX TO ENGELS

IN LONDON

[Ventnor,] 11 November 1882

DEAR FRED,

I return the Prolétaire.[1] Difficult to say who is the greater — Lafargue, who pours out his oracular inspiration upon the bosoms of Malon and Brousse, or these two heroes, heavenly twins who not only tell deliberate lies, but deceive themselves into thinking that the outside world has nothing better to do than to 'intrigue' against them and, indeed, that everyone has the same cranial structure as the magnanimous twain.

Lafargue has the blemish customarily found in the negro tribe — no sense of shame, by which I mean shame about making a fool of oneself.

But it is time, if the journal[2] is not to be wilfully ruined and if they do not intend (which I can't believe) to let it go under as a result of proceedings taken by the government — it is time, I say, for Lafargue to put a stop to his childish bragging about the grisly deeds of his revolution of the future. But on this occasion he has been properly hoist with his own petard. Naturally alarmed because some denunciatory sheet or other, in defiance of police regulations, has reprinted hair-raising anarchist excerpts from the suppressed Étendard, thus making the latter seem 'more progressive' than Paul Lafargue, the licensed oracle of socialisme scientifique—alarmed at such revolutionary competition, Lafargue quotes himself (and he has, of late, acquired a pretty habit, not only of unloosing his oracles on the world, but of 'perpetuating' them by self-quotation) as proof that the Etendard, i. e. that anarchism, has merely aped the wisdom of Lafargue and Co., though merely with the intention of realising it prematurely, before the time is ripe. That's what sometimes happens to oracles; what they believe to be their own inspiration is, on the contrary and more often than not, merely a recollection that has remained stuck in their minds. And what Lafargue has written and 'quoted' from himself is, in fact, no more than the recollection of a Bakunian precept. Lafargue is, indeed, the last remaining disciple of Bakunin seriously to believe in him. He should reread the pamphlet he and you wrote about the 'Alliance',[3] and then he would realise whence he has derived this, his most recent ammunition. Indeed, much time has had to pass before he HAD UNDERSTOOD Bakunin AND, INTO THE BARGAIN, HAS MISUNDERSTOOD HIM.

Longuet as the last Proudhonist and Lafargue as the last Bakuninist! Que le diable les emporte![4]

It's a fine day today, and I must go out of doors (it's only half past ten in the morning).

In my last letter, I told you I intended to get rid of my cough without the help of MEDICAL MEN. But Dr Williamson gave me to understand d'une manière autoritaire[5] that I must for all that be so good as to swallow my medicine. In fact, the brew has done me good; its main ingredient is quinine disulphuricum; the others — morphia, chloroform, etc., have invariably formed part of the brews I have previously had to swallow.

What's the position in regard to Hartmann's pangs qua inventor? Salut.

Moor

You'll have seen from the PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES in yesterday's Standard[6] that the 'worthy' Rivers Wilson has obliged to the extent of sorrowfully offering up on the altar of country his project, the TRUSTEESHIP he assumed in company with the magnanimous Lowe alias Sherbrooke.[7] A bitter pill for Rivers Wilson.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 363-64.
  2. ↑ L'Égalité
  3. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Working Men's Association (written in collaboration with Paul Lafargue).
  4. ↑ May the devil take them!
  5. ↑ in authoritative manner
  6. ↑ 'Imperial Parliament. House of Commons. The Obligations of Civil Servants', The Standard, No. 18195, 10 November 1882.
  7. ↑ The second French workers' congress held in Lyons on 28 January-8 February 1878 decided that an international socialist congress would be held in Paris in September, during the world industrial exhibition. Its convocation was initiated first and foremost by Jules Guesde. The French government banned the congress, but on 4 September the delegates assembled in Paris met unofficially, since it was already too late to try and convene a congress in Lausanne. The police dispersed the participants and arrested 38 people, Guesde among them. They appeared in court on 24 October. Carl Hirsch, who was present at the meeting as a reporter, was arrested on 6 September, kept in custody until 9 October, and then deported.