Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 16, 1868

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 16 May 1868


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 16 May 1868

DEAR FRED,

My silence for a week has perhaps already been explained to you by Schorlemmer.[2] Two carbuncles on the scrotum would perhaps have made even Sulla peevish. How greatly that man, despite his more-than-Palmerstonian TEMPER, was affected by his mythical but anyway lousy sickness, is shown by the fact that just 10 days before his death he had the decurion seized in a neighbouring city, and 1 day before he himself croaked had him strangled in his own house.07

In addition, I have all sorts of trouble. For example, on the 28th of this month a bill for £15 due at the butcher's, etc. To my urgent petitions to Holland no answer.[3]

Finally I had cajoled myself with the illusion that by this time I would have a 2nd edition,[4] and thus see money for the first. But I had added up the bill without the host—I do not mean the Volkswirt,[5] but the Germans in general.

POOR Siebel! In a way he had himself prepared his premature death. But WITH ALL THAT he was a good fellow. We are unlucky— Daniels, Wolff, Schramm, Weydemeyer, Siebel, Weerth! Not to speak of the living dead.

As regards The Fortnightly Review,[6] I had long considered this point, and had long arranged with Lafargue (the actual negotiator with Beesly) that you should appear under any old nom de guerre, which you must let us know. Beesly himself will not be informed who the man is. And it is all the same to him. Apart from other considerations, the impact in Germany would be greatly lessened if the stuff appeared under your name.

In your last letter[7] you made a mistake on one point. The notes used on p. 186[8] you yourself wrote late one evening in my notebook, which still exists.[9] The notes of the Russian Ermen,[10] on the other hand, referred mainly to technical things.

Incidentally, the main thing for me was to ascertain the magnitude of the advanced circulating capital, i.e. advanced in raw material, etc., and wages, as against the circulating capital turned over. I have enough STATEMENTS, part of them from manufacturers, handed in either to the COMMISSIONERS c or to private economists. But everywhere only the annual accounts. The devil of the thing is that there is a wide divergence in political economy between what is of practical interest and what is theoretically necessary, so that one cannot even find the necessary material, as in other sciences.

I have received cuttings from Berlin newspapers from Eichhoff and sent him cuttings from here in RETURN. We have also exchanged two letters.[11] But now the enclosed shows, what Borkheim half guessed on his last visit to Berlin, that Eichhoff has let himself into concessions quoad[12] Stieber. Probably from sheer stupidity. For this reason he has taken up political economy as a neutral field.[13] For the rest, it appears that he feels uneasy, and he told Borkheim that, after swotting up properly on economy, he will exchange Berlin for Vienna, i.\ ABOUT 6 MONTHS

In the Essener Zeitung a pompous denunciation of the International Working Men's Association.

Did you read the warlike SPEECH by Failly when taking over the command of Chalons? I have once again worked through the finances of the Empire. And only one thing appears clear to me, that Badinguet[14] must make war.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ A short excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 33.
  3. ↑ Marx's letters to the Philips family, his mother's relatives, written around 15 February and 5 March 1868 (see Marx's letters TO ENGELS of 15 February and 6 March 1868. present edition, Vol. 42), have not been found.
  4. ↑ of the first volume of Capital
  5. ↑ Marx plays on the words Wirt (host) and Volkswirt (political economist).
  6. ↑ A reference TO ENGELS' intention to write a review of Volume One of Marx's Capital for The Fortnightly Review to which Professor Beesly was a contributor, (see Marx's letter TO ENGELS of 8 January 1868, present edition, Vol. 42). While working on the review, Engels wrote out excerpts from Capital, which later made up a synopsis (see Note 26). The review was written around 20 May-1 June 1868, but rejected by the editorial board (see present edition, Vol. 20).
  7. ↑ See this volume, pp. 32 34.
  8. ↑ A reference to the spinning mill industry statistics for 1860 cited on page 186 of the first German edition of Volume One of Capital. Preparing the second German edition which appeared in 1872, Marx used additional information supplied by Engels (see Note 59), cited exact data and corrected a number of factual mistakes which the first edition contained (see present edition, Vol. 35).
  9. ↑ The extant notebook II of Marx's economic manuscripts of 1861-1863 (see 2MEGA, II/3.1, S. 143) suggests that the information mentioned in this letter was received by Marx from Engels in August-September 1861 during his stay in Manchester. Page 87 of this notebook contains a phrase, 'Suggested by Engels...' The figures cited further completely tally with the examples on page 186 of Volume One of the first edition of Capital which appeared in 1867. However, this phrase is absent in the notebook Marx kept since April 1860 and until February-May 1863.
  10. ↑ Anton Ermen ' members of Parliamentary investigating commissions
  11. ↑ These letters from Marx to Wilhelm Eichhoff have not been found.
  12. ↑ with regard to
  13. ↑ An allusion to the rumour that, having returned to Germany in 1867 after a long period of emigration, Wilhelm Eichhoff had abandoned politics and refused on these grounds to join the political campaign against Stieber waged by Liebknecht in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt between April and June 1868. However, as early as May, Liebknecht informed Borkheim that Eichhoff had promised to let him have the necessary anti-Stieber materials. The content of Liebknecht's letters was known to Marx. His associates began to distrust Eichhoff even more after he had been seen in the company of Berlin police officers, and especially after his speech at the inaugural meeting of the Democratic Workers' Society, which appeared in Die Zukunft newspaper in distorted form and was later reprinted by the Demokratisches Wochenblatt, No. 43, 24 October 1868 (see this volume, pp. 151, 153). Marx had done a great deal to clear Eichhoff's name. On Marx's request, Eichhoff wrote to him on 31 October-1 November giving full explanations which convinced Marx of his dedication to the cause of revolution (see also Marx's letter TO ENGELS of 16 April 1869).
  14. ↑ nickname of Napoleon III (after the name of a mason in whose clothes he escaped from prison in 1846)