Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, January 1, 1852

Author(s)	Karl Marx
Written	1 January 1852

First published abridged in Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A selection, International Publishers, New York, 1953 and in full in Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934
Published in English for the first time in full in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39, pp. 3-4

To Joseph Weydemeyer^[1] in New York

[London,] 1 January 1852

Dear Weiwi,

A happy New Year to you, and greetings to your wife^[2] from myself and wife.

I have not been able to send you the article until now,^[3] having been interrupted not only by events coming one on top of another but to an even greater extent by private affairs. Henceforward, I shall be regularity itself.

Lupus^[4] has fallen seriously ill and hence has not yet been able to send anything. Red Wolff's^[5] article seemed to me unusable, hence I did not send it off.^[6]

If, which I hope will not happen, your undertaking^[7] has to be postponed for any length of time on financial grounds, let Dana have the article so that he may translate it into English for his paper.^[8] However, I hope this will not be necessary.

Give Dana my regards. Tell him I have received his newspapers and his letter and shall be sending him a new WORK next week.^[9] As for the Revues,^[10] since they are not ready to hand but have to be obtained at some expense and trouble from Hamburg, please let me know roughly how many sales you think I can count on in America.^[11]

I shall be sending you from here Notes to the People by our friend Ernest Jones, the most important leader of the English party; you should find them a veritable mine when it comes to filling the gaps in your paper.

Send me at once (and in future regularly) a few copies of your weekly.

Greeting and fraternity.

Your

K. Marx

Yesterday I hammered away at Freiligrath for all I was worth and he promised me to concoct a poem for you on the most recent occurrences.^[12]

↑ This letter was first published in English considerably abridged in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A selection. International Publishers, New York, 1953.
↑ Louise
↑ This refers to Chapter I of Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which Marx wrote from December 1851 to March 1852, immediately following the coup d'état in France on 2 December 1851 (see present edition, Vol. 11, Note 64). It is closely linked with other works by Marx and Engels analysing the 1848-49 revolution in France (Engels' Letters from France, Marx's Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850, see present edition, Vol. 10) and was originally intended as a series of articles in the weekly Die Revolution, which Joseph Weydemeyer began preparing in December 1851 for publication in New York. Marx and Engels considered this journal highly important for the dissemination of scientific communism and took great pains to provide Weydemeyer with material. They sent him their own articles and those of their associates—Ernest Jones, Wilhelm Pieper, Johann Georg Eccarius, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Wilhelm Wolff and others. In connection with the forthcoming publication of the journal the Turn-Zeitung, No. 3, carried the following announcement on 1 January 1852: "Die Revolution," a weekly journal edited by J. Weydemeyer, associate editor of the Neue Deutsche Zeitung suppressed by the police in Frankfurt am Main, is published every Saturday in co-operation with the editorial board of the former Neue Rheinische Zeitung (K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Freiligrath, etc.) Weydemeyer managed to put out only two issues (on 6 and 13 January 1852), following which publication ceased for lack of funds. The first issue reproduced part of 'Review, May to October 1850' published by Marx and Engels in 1850 in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue (see present edition, Vol. 10), and also announced the forthcoming publication of Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and 'Neuste Offenbarungen des Sozialismus oder "Idée générale de la Révolution au XIXe siècle, par P. J. Proudhon". Kritik von K. M.' (the latter was not written by Marx). The second issue carried the rest of the 'Review' and part of Chapter II of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (see present edition, Vol. 6). Weydemeyer received Chapter I of The Eighteenth Brumaire, mentioned here, as well as the rest of the work, when publication had ceased, but with the help of Adolf Cluss he succeeded in bringing out two more issues of the 'non-periodic journal' Die Revolution in May and June 1852 which carried this work and satirical poems by Ferdinand Freiligrath (see Note 13). Weydemeyer failed to buy up from the printer even half of the 1,000 copies of the work printed. Only about 150 copies were sent to Europe, and approximately the same number sold in the USA in 1852 and 1853. Cluss and other associates of Marx in the past revolutionary struggle in Germany (Johann Schickel, Conrad Schramm, Franz Arnold and others) greatly contributed to disseminate his work among former subscribers to Die Revolution in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Cincinnati, Washington and other large cities.
↑ Wilhelm Wolff
↑ Ferdinand Wolff
↑ Wilhelm and Ferdinand Wolff intended to write articles for Die Revolution. In a letter of 19 December 1851 Marx promised Weydemeyer (see present edition, Vol. 38, p. 519) to send him by the next steamer the following material: 1. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by K. Marx; 2. Der Staatsstreich in Frankreich by Ferdinand Wolff; 3. Nemesis by Wilhelm Wolff. Weydemeyer announced this in the first issue of Die Revolution on 6 January 1852, being unaware as yet of Marx's decision not to publish Ferdinand Wolff's article.
↑ the publication of Die Revolution
↑ The reference is to the progressive newspaper, the New-York Daily Tribune, to which Marx contributed from August 1851 to March 1862. A large number of articles for this paper were written at his request by Engels, Marx beginning to send his own articles to New York only in August 1852. He wrote the first ones in German, and his friends, generally Engels, translated them into English. By the end of January 1853 he started writing his contributions in English. Marx's and Engels' articles in the New-York Daily Tribune dealt with major questions of foreign and home policy, the working-class movement, the economic development of European countries, colonial expansion, and the national liberation movement in oppressed and dependent countries. The articles at once attracted attention by their factual information, acute political judgment and brilliant style. This was acknowledged by the editors of the Tribune, who wrote, in a leading article on 7 April 1853, of the need 'to pay a tribute to the remarkable ability of the correspondent'. They went on: 'Mr Marx has very decided opinions of his own, with some of which we are far from agreeing; but those who do not read his letters neglect one of the most instructive sources of information on the great questions of current European politics.' In a letter to Mrs Marx of 1 July 1853, Charles Dana, one of the editors, wrote that her husband's articles were highly thought of by the Tribune owners and the reading public. Articles by Marx and Engels were widely disseminated in America, many of them being reprinted in the Tribune's special editions—the New-York Weekly Tribune and the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune. Some of the Tribune's articles were translated into German and published in German-language American newspapers.
↑ Marx has in mind Article VII of Engels' series Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany. These articles were printed in the New-York Daily Tribune over Marx's signature from 25 October 1851 to 23 October 1852. While writing them Engels constantly exchanged views with Marx who read his articles before sending them off to the newspaper. Only in 1913, when the correspondence between Marx and Engels was published, it became known that the articles had been written by Engels. Some articles of the series were published in German refugee newspapers in America. The German translation of the first two articles appeared in the New-Yorker Abendzeitung at the end of October 1851 without any reference to the source; a free translation of the beginning of the first article was published in Weitling's Republik der Arbeiter on 1 November 1851.
↑ Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue.
↑ In November 1851 Cluss wrote to Marx about the need to disseminate the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue in America, noting that Magnus Gross, the New York distributor, was not giving it sufficient publicity. When Weydemeyer went to America, he accepted Marx's proposal that he should take upon himself the sale and distribution of the Revue (see present edition, Vol. 38, p. 489). On 6 February 1852 he informed Marx that he hoped to sell about 200 copies of it at $1 instead of the $4.50 fixed by the Hamburg publisher Schuberth. Marx, however, was unable to have the necessary number of copies sent over from Europe.
↑ See this volume, p. 8.

[1] This letter was first published in English considerably abridged in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A selection. International Publishers, New York, 1953.

[2] Louise

[3] This refers to Chapter I of Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which Marx wrote from December 1851 to March 1852, immediately following the coup d'état in France on 2 December 1851 (see present edition, Vol. 11, Note 64). It is closely linked with other works by Marx and Engels analysing the 1848-49 revolution in France (Engels' Letters from France, Marx's Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850, see present edition, Vol. 10) and was originally intended as a series of articles in the weekly Die Revolution, which Joseph Weydemeyer began preparing in December 1851 for publication in New York. Marx and Engels considered this journal highly important for the dissemination of scientific communism and took great pains to provide Weydemeyer with material. They sent him their own articles and those of their associates—Ernest Jones, Wilhelm Pieper, Johann Georg Eccarius, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Wilhelm Wolff and others. In connection with the forthcoming publication of the journal the Turn-Zeitung, No. 3, carried the following announcement on 1 January 1852: "Die Revolution," a weekly journal edited by J. Weydemeyer, associate editor of the Neue Deutsche Zeitung suppressed by the police in Frankfurt am Main, is published every Saturday in co-operation with the editorial board of the former Neue Rheinische Zeitung (K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Freiligrath, etc.) Weydemeyer managed to put out only two issues (on 6 and 13 January 1852), following which publication ceased for lack of funds. The first issue reproduced part of 'Review, May to October 1850' published by Marx and Engels in 1850 in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue (see present edition, Vol. 10), and also announced the forthcoming publication of Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and 'Neuste Offenbarungen des Sozialismus oder "Idée générale de la Révolution au XIXe siècle, par P. J. Proudhon". Kritik von K. M.' (the latter was not written by Marx). The second issue carried the rest of the 'Review' and part of Chapter II of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (see present edition, Vol. 6). Weydemeyer received Chapter I of The Eighteenth Brumaire, mentioned here, as well as the rest of the work, when publication had ceased, but with the help of Adolf Cluss he succeeded in bringing out two more issues of the 'non-periodic journal' Die Revolution in May and June 1852 which carried this work and satirical poems by Ferdinand Freiligrath (see Note 13). Weydemeyer failed to buy up from the printer even half of the 1,000 copies of the work printed. Only about 150 copies were sent to Europe, and approximately the same number sold in the USA in 1852 and 1853. Cluss and other associates of Marx in the past revolutionary struggle in Germany (Johann Schickel, Conrad Schramm, Franz Arnold and others) greatly contributed to disseminate his work among former subscribers to Die Revolution in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Cincinnati, Washington and other large cities.

[4] Wilhelm Wolff

[5] Ferdinand Wolff

[6] Wilhelm and Ferdinand Wolff intended to write articles for Die Revolution. In a letter of 19 December 1851 Marx promised Weydemeyer (see present edition, Vol. 38, p. 519) to send him by the next steamer the following material: 1. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by K. Marx; 2. Der Staatsstreich in Frankreich by Ferdinand Wolff; 3. Nemesis by Wilhelm Wolff. Weydemeyer announced this in the first issue of Die Revolution on 6 January 1852, being unaware as yet of Marx's decision not to publish Ferdinand Wolff's article.

[7] the publication of Die Revolution

[8] The reference is to the progressive newspaper, the New-York Daily Tribune, to which Marx contributed from August 1851 to March 1862. A large number of articles for this paper were written at his request by Engels, Marx beginning to send his own articles to New York only in August 1852. He wrote the first ones in German, and his friends, generally Engels, translated them into English. By the end of January 1853 he started writing his contributions in English. Marx's and Engels' articles in the New-York Daily Tribune dealt with major questions of foreign and home policy, the working-class movement, the economic development of European countries, colonial expansion, and the national liberation movement in oppressed and dependent countries. The articles at once attracted attention by their factual information, acute political judgment and brilliant style. This was acknowledged by the editors of the Tribune, who wrote, in a leading article on 7 April 1853, of the need 'to pay a tribute to the remarkable ability of the correspondent'. They went on: 'Mr Marx has very decided opinions of his own, with some of which we are far from agreeing; but those who do not read his letters neglect one of the most instructive sources of information on the great questions of current European politics.' In a letter to Mrs Marx of 1 July 1853, Charles Dana, one of the editors, wrote that her husband's articles were highly thought of by the Tribune owners and the reading public. Articles by Marx and Engels were widely disseminated in America, many of them being reprinted in the Tribune's special editions—the New-York Weekly Tribune and the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune. Some of the Tribune's articles were translated into German and published in German-language American newspapers.

[9] Marx has in mind Article VII of Engels' series Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany. These articles were printed in the New-York Daily Tribune over Marx's signature from 25 October 1851 to 23 October 1852. While writing them Engels constantly exchanged views with Marx who read his articles before sending them off to the newspaper. Only in 1913, when the correspondence between Marx and Engels was published, it became known that the articles had been written by Engels. Some articles of the series were published in German refugee newspapers in America. The German translation of the first two articles appeared in the New-Yorker Abendzeitung at the end of October 1851 without any reference to the source; a free translation of the beginning of the first article was published in Weitling's Republik der Arbeiter on 1 November 1851.

[10] Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue.

[11] In November 1851 Cluss wrote to Marx about the need to disseminate the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue in America, noting that Magnus Gross, the New York distributor, was not giving it sufficient publicity. When Weydemeyer went to America, he accepted Marx's proposal that he should take upon himself the sale and distribution of the Revue (see present edition, Vol. 38, p. 489). On 6 February 1852 he informed Marx that he hoped to sell about 200 copies of it at $1 instead of the $4.50 fixed by the Hamburg publisher Schuberth. Marx, however, was unable to have the necessary number of copies sent over from Europe.

[12] See this volume, p. 8.

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