Letter to Friedrich Engels, February 10, 1866

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 February 1866


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engek und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 10 February 1866

Dear Fritz,

It was a close shave this time. My family did not know how sérieux the cas[2] was. If the matter recurs in that form three or four times more, I shall be a dead man. I am marvellously wasted away and still damned weak, not in the mind but about my loins and in my legs. The doctors are quite right to think that excessive work at night has been the chief cause of this relapse. But I cannot tell these gentlemen the reasons that force this extravagance on me—nor would it serve any purpose to do so. At this moment, I have all kinds of little progeny about my person, which is painful but no longer in the least dangerous.

What was most loathsome to me was the interruption in my work, which had been going splendidly since JANUARY 1ST, when I got over my liver complaint. There was no question of sitting, of lying down, I was able to forge ahead, even if only for short periods of the day. I could make no progress with the really theoretical part. My brain was not up to that. I therefore elaborated the section on the Working-Day from the historical point of view, which was not part of my original plan. What I have now 'inserted' supplements your book[3] (sketchily) up to 1865 (and I say so in a note[4] ) and fully justifies the discrepancy between your estimation of the future and what will actually happen. Therefore, as soon as my book appears, it is necessary to have the second edition of your book, which will be easy in the circumstances. I shall provide the necessary theory. Regarding the additional historical supplement, which you should give as an appendix to your book, all the material, excepting the FACTORY REPORTS,[5] the Children's Employment Commission Reports and the Board of Health Reports,[6] is utter trash and scientifically unusable. Your energy being undiminished by carbuncles, you will easily cope with this material within 3 months.

As far as the Russians are concerned, I have no material. As soon as my condition permits, I shall go to the Museum[7] about it and look around for it among the Poles. There's been a great crisis with The Workman's Advocate, which will appear tomorrow as The Commonwealth, a transformation pushed through by the bourgeois element, for which my absence from the COUNCIL was to blame. From my sickbed I have, nevertheless, managed to baulk the plot by means of written threats, with the effect that Eccarius has been made editor instead of a gentleman from The Nonconformist, and an EDITORIAL SUPERVISION COMMITTEE has been appointed which will meet weekly. It consists of myself, Fox, Howell, Weston and Miall (the PUBLISHER-EDITOR of The Nonconformist and our PUBLISHER NOW), 4 atheists against one 'PROTESTANT'.[8] POOR Eccarius now needs your article[9] urgently (there being a whole mass of intrigues and I unable to help; my book requires all my writing time).

Your wine is having a miraculous effect on me. While my illness was in full bloom I had to buy bad PORTWINE—it being the only wine suitable for an acute carbuncle condition.

Apropos. As I see from one of the latest 'FACTORY REPORTS', John Watts has published a pamphlet ON MACHINERY.[10] Ask him, on my behalf, to send me a copy.

I am going to write a few lines to Wilhelm[11] cursing him for his spinelessness. The collapse of the Social-Demokrat and of all the Lassallean trash is, of course, the very thing we want.[12]

Lyons (the workers there) have sent £8 to the INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL.

Salut.

Your

Moor

  1. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in Karl Marx, On the First International. Arranged and edited, with an introduction and new translations by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1973.
  2. ↑ serious the case
  3. ↑ F. Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England.
  4. ↑ See this note by Marx in the English edition of Volume One of Capital published in London, under Engels' editorship, in 1887 (Part III, Chapter X, Section 2, p. 223). In the first German edition of Volume One of Capital (1867), the section 'The Working Day' was part of Chapter III while in the second and subsequent German editions it made up Chapter VIII of Part III. In the English edition of 1887 it is Chapter X in Part III (see present edition, Vol. 35).
  5. ↑ Reports of the Inspectors of Factories to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department.
  6. ↑ Public Health. Reports of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council.
  7. ↑ the British Museum Library
  8. ↑ The Workman's Advocate (see Note 230) was renamed The Commonwealth on 10 February 1866. Despite the reorganisation the newspaper remained the official organ of the International Working Men's Association. It continued to publish reports of the Central Council meetings and other documents of the International. Marx remained on the Board of the Industrial Newspaper Company which owned the paper until 9 June 1866. Thanks to his efforts Eccarius, who became the editor of The Workman's Advocate not long before, retained his post. However, the reformist leaders of trade unions managed to paralyse the influence of Marx's supporters. In April 1866 George Odger was appointed its editor-in-chief. In issue No. 183, 8 September 1866, the newspaper declared itself to be the organ of the Reform League (see Note 155) and in fact fell under the influence of the radical bourgeoisie. It ceased publication on 20 July 1867.
  9. ↑ F. Engels, 'What Have the Working Classes to Do with Poland?'
  10. ↑ J. Watts, Trade Societies and Strikes.... Machinery....
  11. ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht
  12. ↑ In his letter of 18 January 1866 to Marx Wilhelm Liebknecht wrote that J. B. von Hofstetten, an editor of Der Social-Demokrat, had made one more attempt to persuade Marx, Engels and himself to contribute to the newspaper and use it for propagating the ideas of the International.