Letter to Ferdinand Lassalle, November 22, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 22 November 1859


First published in: F. Lassalle. Nachgelassene Briefe und Schriften, Bd. III, Stuttgart-Berlin 1922. Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO FERDINAND LASSALLE[1]

IN BERLIN

[London,] 22 November 1859

Dear Lassalle,

For one thing today is mailing day for America[2] ; for another I have taken medicine. So writing is difficult either way. Hence I shall be quite brief.

[3] [4] [5]

1. THANKS for your last letter but one. I shall, however, probably succeed in arranging a bill on myself here in London, at an exorbitant rate of interest.

2. You had best abandon your anti-Vogt statement now that the Reform has already printed a statement of mine.[6] My chief concern now is to compel Mr Vogt to pursue the matter in London.[7]

3. I have told Freiligrath that you have praised his poem on Schiller and criticised his conduct towards you.[8] He will now write to you. Read No. 43 of the Gartenlaube wherein Kinkel's sycophant, Mr Beta (sometime editor of the How do you do? published here by Louis Drucker, and presently faiseur-en-chef[9] of the Hermann, whose EDITORS are all recruited from the literary

Lumpenproletariat), makes the discovery that Freiligrath 'seldom sang any more' after he had been 'inspired' by me.[10] During recent years Freiligrath has been whoring too much after the idols of Babylon, so great is his thirst for popularity. His wife may not be an altogether beneficent influence IN THIS RESPECT. I will dilate no further on this theme, except to say that I show more considera- tion for old personal and party friends than seems right to many very clever people in our party.

4. Ad vocem Bonaparte. So far as I can see, the Italian war[11]

has temporarily strengthened Bonaparte's position in France; betrayed the Italian revolution into the hands of the Piedmontese doctrinaires and their henchmen; made Prussia exceptionally popular with the liberal vulgus[12] by virtue of her Haugwitzian policy; increased Russia's influence in Germany; and, finally, propagated demoralisation of an unprecedented kind—a most repulsive combination of Bonapartism and drivel about nationalities. I for my part fail to see any reason why members of our party had to give dialectical support to these nauseous, counter-revolutionary illusions of philistine-liberal provenance. It is my belief that, from the moment when Disraeli publicly admitted the existence of an alliance between Bonaparte and Russia,[13] and more especially from the moment when Russia sent out her shameless circular note to the German courts,[14] the battle-cry should have been raised against the.Russo-French

alliance. Opposition to Russia would instandy have disposed of the delusion that there was anything anti-liberal about a turning against France.

Schleinitz's despatches,[15] which I have studied in detail, together with the statements made by the ministers over here, some direct to Parliament, some in the press, confirm my view that Prussia had no intention of intervening so long as the German frontier was not violated. Bonaparte, as the protégé of Russia and England, had at the time been given permission to conduct a 'localised' war in order to keep him in France. Prussia would not have dared lift a finger and, had she done so, there would have been war between Germany and Russia, than which nothing could be more desirable. But IN FACT there was no question of it, because Prussia would never have had the courage to take such a step. Rather it was a question, partly of exposing the Prussian government in all its miserable weakness, partly and above all of unmasking Bonapartist DELUSIONS. Nor would the game have been too difficult, since all the representatives of the revolutionary party from Mazzini to Louis Blanc, Ledru-Rollin and even Proudhon would have joined in. This would have meant that the polemic against Bonaparte's imposture could not have acquired the appearance of hostility to Italy or France.

I am not, of course, going into the matter thoroughly here, but merely jotting down a few points. However, I shall, with your permission, make one further observation. There is a possibility that things will come to a head again soon. In that case one of two things must prevail in our party: either no one speaks for the party without prior consultation with the others, or everyone has the right to put forward his views without any regard for the others. Now this last is certainly not to be recommended, since a public polemic would in no way benefit so small a party (which, I hope, makes up in vigour for what it lacks in numbers). I can only say that, during my travels through England and Scotland (this summer)[16] —for our old party friends are scattered about the country—I did not find anybody here who would not have wished you had modified your pamphlet[17] in many respects. I see a quite simple explanation for this, namely that foreign policy, in

particular, presents a very different aspect according to whether you view it from English soil or from the Continent.

Salut

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ This letter is the reply to two letters by Lassalle, dated mid-November and 20 November 1859. Marx reverts to the disagreements with Lassalle over the assessment of Napoleon Ill's policy and the tactical line on the question of Italy's and Germany's unification, and answers Lassalle's attempts to prove the correctness of his stand formulated in a letter written in October 1859 (see Note 485).—536
  2. ↑ It was a Tuesday. On Tuesdays and Fridays Marx sent off articles for the New York Daily Tribune.
  3. ↑ [Blind,] 'Prognostikon des wahrscheinlichen Verlaufes des italienischen Krieges; geschrieben kurz vor Ausbruch desselben', Hermann, No. 46, 19 November 1859.
  4. ↑ [K. W. Eichhoff,] 'Stieber', Hermann, Nos. 36-38, 40, 42, 43; 10, 17, 24 September, 8, 22, 29 October 1859.
  5. ↑ [K. W. Eichhoff,] 'Berlin, 8. Nov. (Stieber)', Hermann, No. 45, 12 November 1859.
  6. ↑ K. Marx, 'Statement to the Editors of Die Reform, the Volks-Zeitung and the Allgemeine Zeitung'.
  7. ↑ See this volume, p. 525.
  8. ↑ In a letter to Marx written in mid-November 1859 Lassalle praised Freiligrath's poem 'Zur Schillerfeier. 10. November 1859. Fesdied der Deutschen in London' and at the same time expressed offence at Freiligrath's failing to acknowledge his drama Franz von Sickingen, which Lassalle had sent him for comment.—537
  9. ↑ chief impresario
  10. ↑ [H.] B[eta,] 'Ferdinand Freiligrath', Die Gartenlaube, No. 43, 1859.
  11. ↑ This refers to the war preparations of the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and France against Austria. The war (29 April to 8 July 1859) was launched by Napoleon III, who under the banner of the 'liberation of Italy' strove for aggrandizement and needed a successful military campaign to shore up the Bonapartist regime in France. Piedmont ruling circles hoped that French support would enable them to unite Italy under the aegis of the Savoy dynasty. The war caused an upsurge of the national liberation movement in Italy. The Austrian army suffered a series of defeats. However Napoleon III, frightened by the scale of the liberation movement in Italy, abruptly ceased hostilities. On 11 July, the French and Austrian emperors concluded a separate preliminary peace in Villafranca. France received Savoy and Nice; Lombardy was annexed to Sardinia; the Venetian Region remained under the Austrians.—380, 399, 401, 405, 462, 537
  12. ↑ common people
  13. ↑ The reference is to the secret Paris treaty of 19 February (3 March) 1859 concluded between France and Russia. Russia undertook to adopt a 'political and military stand which most easily proves its favourable neutrality towards France' and not to object to the enlargement of the Kingdom of Sardinia in the event of a war between France and Sardinia on the one hand and Austria on the other. Information about this secret treaty leaked into the press but the Russian Foreign Minister Gorchakov officially denied the existence of any written obligations to France. Marx refers to this treaty in his article 'The Financial Panic' (present edition, Vol. 16).—430, 537
  14. ↑ A. Gortschakoff, 'Circularschreiben an die russischen Gesandtschaften vom 15 (27) Mai 1859', Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 167, 16 June 1859.
  15. ↑ to the Prussian embassies in Britain, Russia and Germany (Berlin, June-July 1859); reports on the despatches appeared in the Neue Preußische Zeitung, No. 170, 24 July 1859 ('Zu der "Vermittlung"'), No. 171, 26 July ('Preußische Depeschen') and No. 174, 29 July 1859 ('Deutschland'). See also p. 520
  16. ↑ Marx came to Engels in Manchester approximately on 12 June 1859 to discuss questions connected with the publication of Das Volk. From Manchester he went to Scotland to visit former members of the Communist League Peter Imandt and Heinrich Heise, with whom he discussed the financing of the paper. Marx returned to London about 2 July.—459, 462, 470, 472, 497, 520, 538
  17. ↑ F. Lassalle, Der italienische Krieg und die Aufgabe Preußens.