Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 24, 1866

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 24 March 1866


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


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

Margate, 24 March 1866
5 Lansell's Place

Dear FRED,

The belated arrival of this letter will tell you how 'professionally' I am applying my time here. I am reading nothing, am writing nothing. The mere fact of having to take the arsenic three times a day obliges one to arrange one's time for meals and for strolling by the sea and over the adjacent HILLS in such a way that one finds 'no time' for anything else. And in the evening one is too tired to do anything other than sleep. The weather is, by and large, rather raw, and in particular there is often an east wind blowing here, which is SOMEWHAT CHILLING, but one soon becomes accustomed to that, too. You can tell how much I am restored from the fact that last Sunday I marched per pedes[2] to Canterbury (17 miles from here) in less than 4 hours. As regards company here, it does not exist, of course. I can sing with the MILLER OF THE DEE:[3] 'I CARE FOR

NOBODY AND NOBODY CARES FOR ME.'

The day before yesterday[4] I had to go to London in the evening to attend a 'soirée' of my daughters. My uncle[5] had sent them £ 5 at Christmas, which was, however, 'borrowed' from them for GENERAL PURPOSES and which they only got back when your money arrived. Thev arranged their annual 'PARTY' with it and so bombarded me with letters that I 'made' for London, as Mr Nothjung used to say. But I returned to my hermitage here the very next morning (i. e., yesterday).

Before setting off for Margate (which I did on Wednesday, 14 March[6] ), I had to attend the consecutive evening meetings, on 12 and 13 March, firstly of the SHAREHOLDERS of The Commonwealth[7]

and secondly, on the 13th, of the CENTRAL COUNCIL, although still in a thoroughly wretched condition at the time.

On the former occasion Mr Cremer had set everything up for Eccarius to be given his marching orders, which would probably

have happened if I had not appeared. So, the meeting only achieved the 'voluntary' resignation of Mr Cremer from the editorial board. How the matter turned out later, I do not know, since the whole thing was only SETTLED 'provisionally' for one week, and the general SHAREHOLDERS-MEETING was deferred to 19 March. But it will probably mean beati possidentes[8] here too, and as a result of that meeting Eccarius was, to begin with, the possidetis.[9]

T h e intrigue on the CENTRAL COUNCIL was closely bound u p with the RIVALRIES and JEALOUSIES concerning the journal (Mr Howell wished to be EDITOR-IN-CHIEF and Mr Cremer ditto). Mr Le Lubez had used this to agitate against
GERMAN INFLUENCE, and at the meeting of 6 March a beautifully and quietly prepared scene took place. T o wit, Major Wolff suddenly appeared and made a solemn speech in his own name and in Mazzini's and in that of the ITALIAN SOCIETY[10] against the reply to Vesinier's attacks, which J u n g had sent to the Echo de Verviers in the name of the CENTRAL COUNCIL.[11]

H e made a very violent attack on J u n g and (impliciter[12] ) myself. Odger, Howell, Cremer, and others gave vent to their longstand- ing Mazzinism. Le Lubez fed the flames and, AT ALL EVENTS, a resolution was passed which included what amounted to an amende honorable[13] for Mazzini, Wolff, etc. It was a serious matter, as you can see. (Of the FOREIGNERS, there were only A FEW PRESENT, and none of them voted.) It would really be a neat trick of Mazzini's to let me bring the Association so far and then to appropriate it for himself. H e demanded that the English should recognise him as leader of the continental democrats, as though it was for the English gentlemen to appoint leaders for us\

On Saturday (10 March) the FOREIGN SECRETARIES of the Association gathered at my house to hold a council of war (Dupont, Jung, Longuet, Lafargue, Bobczyriski). It was resolved that, whatever happened, I was to attend the COUNCIL on Tuesday (13th) and protest against the PROCEEDINGS in the name of all the FOREIGN- SECRETARIES. T h e PROCEEDINGS were irregular, you see, as Wolff is n o longer a MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL, therefore n o resolution on a matter in which he was personally implicated ought to be passed in his presence. Furthermore, I was to explain Mazzini's position vis-à-vis both o u r Association and the CONTINENTAL WORKINGMENS PARTIES, etc. Finally, the French were to bring Cesare Orsini (who is BY THE BY a personal friend of Mazzini) along to give EVIDENCE on Mazzini, Wolff and the STATE OF SOCIALISM' in Italy.

T h e affair went off better than I had ever expected 3 1 3; though the English element was unfortunately not well represented (on account of the bloody Reform League 1 5 5). I gave that Lubez a thorough dressing down. In any case, it has been made clear to the English (in fact only a minority is meant here, too) that the whole CONTINENTAL ELEMENT stands behind me as one man and that here it is by no means, as Mr Lubez had insinuated, a case of GERMAN INFLUENCE. Lubez had sought to put it to them that as LEADER of the ENGLISH ELEMENT on the COUNCIL, I was holding DOWN the other CONTINENTAL ELEMENTS; the English gentlemen are, on the contrary, now persuaded that by means of the CONTINENTAL ELEMENT I have got them entirely under my thumb, should they kick over the traces. More about that next time.

Before coming here, I did, of course, pay off the most pressing DEBTS at home, as otherwise I should not have had a moment's peace of mind. If you can send me a little bit more at the end of this month, I would appreciate it. Meanwhile, the power of attorney from the Cape[14] will be here at last, and thus something will at least be flowing into the coffers, even if it is not very much.

MY COMPLIMENTS TO MRS LIZZY.[15]

Your

K. M.

  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. ↑ on foot
  3. ↑ from the English folk song 'The Miller of the Dee'
  4. ↑ 22 March
  5. ↑ Lion Philips
  6. ↑ Presumably this is not correct, for Marx arrived at Margate on Thursday, 15 March (see this volume, p. 239).
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ blessed are they who have possession (Horace, Odes, IV, IX, 45)
  9. ↑ the man in possession
  10. ↑ Marx is referring to the Associazione di Mutuo Progresso founded at the end of June 1864 by the Italian workers resident in London. Initially the Society numbered about 300 members and was influenced by Mazzini. Garibaldi was elected its Honorary President. In January 1865 the Society became affiliated to the International Association.
  11. ↑ On 16 and 18 December 1865 the Belgian democratic newspaper L'Echo de Verviers, Nos. 293 and 294, published an anonymous article which slandered the Central Council's activities and the work of the London Conference of the International held in 1865 (see Note 246). Its author was the French petty-bourgeois republican Pierre Vésinier, a refugee in Belgium and the spokesman for petty-bourgeois elements in the French Section in London who opposed Marx and the Central Council.
    Vésinier's article was discussed in the Central Council on 26 December 1865 and on 2 and 9 January 1866. On the instructions of the Council, Vésinier's slanderous attacks were refuted by Hermann Jung, who with Marx's help wrote a letter to L'Echo de Verviers. By the Council's decision of 6 February 1866 the letter was sent to the editor (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 392-400).
  12. ↑ by implication
  13. ↑ apology
  14. ↑ from Johann Carl Juta (Marx presumably refers to the power of attorney for receiving his share of legacy at the death of his aunt, Esther Kosel; see this volume, p. 194)
  15. ↑ Lizzy Burns