MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 29 March 1869
DEAR FRED,
Best thanks for the CHEQUE and the STAMPS. I paid Lucraft last Tuesday.[1] Have you seen the short report about the demonstration in The Times OF SATURDAY LAST[2] ? It states that a German group ('of our people!') carried a red flag inscribed Proletarier aller Länder, verunreiniget Euch!, which they said in English, means 'RAGAMUFFINS OF ALL REGIONS, BEFOUL YOURSELVES!'
As you correctly assume, I am cold-maddened and cold-stupefied.
The children left on Friday[3] evening (to the horror of the English, on GOOD FRIDAY). We received a letter from them this morning. They arrived safely in Paris, but had a stormy crossing.
I am not yet a FREEBORN BRITON. One resists such a step as long as one can.[4]
Nothing could be more gallant than the way Wilhelm the Honourable is extracting himself from the affair of the Vogt copies[5] . At my INSTIGATION, Kugelmann wrote to him about it. No reply to the first letter, and to another letter he received the enclosed screed, which may be summed up as follows: If I (Liebknecht) announced [the despatch of] 60 copies, but only 6 arrived, you should be aware that J always lie, so there the matter must rest. If, however, C. Hirsch of Berlin advised you of the number (he naturally does not know that I advised Kugelmann), it is a different matter and must be investigated.
The sort of artful dodges the fellow gets up to is displayed in a letter from Hirsch to Kugelmann. Hirsch writes to Kugelmann[6] :
'Liebknecht probably hopes for nothing more than that you should circulate the books IN QUESTION in Hanover, in order to enlighten the Democratic Party there about the doings of Herr Vogt, etc'
Thus Wilhelm kept it secret from Hirsch that / had demanded information about the state of affairs, and an assured place for storing those copies still available.
Kugelmann writes:
'The coming clash of words between Liebknecht and Schweitzer reminds me less of Luther and Eck than of Pater José and Rabbi Juda....' 'But it seems to me, as well, that the rabbi and the monk, both of them to heaven smell'[7]
With regard to this clash of words, I received (today) the enclosed letter from Bebel. Since the 60-copy letter,[8] Wilhelm himself does not dare write to me—until more water has flowed under the bridge.
They are amazing fellows! First they wilfully get themselves into a situation where they are bound to get a drubbing. Then I am supposed to intervene as deus ex machina and elegantly reject Schweitzer's resolution on the acceptance of the programme of the International, should Schweitzer's general meeting pass it![9] And all this after Wilhelm and Co. have not taken one single step about the International since the Nuremberg Congress,[10] have done absolutely nothing so that those poor devils in Lugau found it necessary to turn directly to London.[11] I believe Bebel to be useful and able. He only had the particular misfortune to find his 'theoretician' in Mr Wilhelm.
Something else demonstrates the fellows' carelessness and sloppiness: to date they have not informed me of a single FACT to prove the charges of high treason, etc., levelled against Schweitzer. Fine businessmen.
Lloyd's Paper, in the Sunday number a week ago,[12] carried long hymns of praise about our RESOLUTIONS and the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION in general.
I have received a letter from Dietzgen, who is a prosperous tanner in Siegburg.[13] I shall send it to you as soon as it is answered. Dietzgen's ideas will be published by Meissner, for whom he has guaranteed the printing costs, under the title: Die Kopfarbeit, dargestellt von einem Handarbeiter usw. Salut. Greetings to MRS Lizzie and the two accomplices[14] .
Your
K. M.
- ↑ 23 March
- ↑ 'The Demonstration in Trafalgar Square', The Times, No. 26396, 27 March 1869.
- ↑ 19 March
- ↑ When he was about to travel to Karlsbad for a cure, Marx made an attempt to become a British subject in August 1874, as a precaution against possible reprisals by Austrian authorities. In Austria, as in a number of other European countries, members of the workers' and democratic movement could be taken to court for merely corresponding with Marx. A Special Report of the Metropolitan Police Office, Scotland Yard, is extant which was drawn up in connection with Marx's application for citizenship and in which Marx is characterised as follows: '... he is the notorious German agitator, the head of the International Society, and an advocate of Communistic principles. This man has not been loyal to his own King and Country.'
Marx's request was not granted for reasons which had probably not been explained to him.
- ↑ The reference is to K. Marx, Herr Vogt (see this volume, pp. 208 and 231).
- ↑ See below for a letter from Hirsch to Kugelmann of 8 February and Kugelmann's letter to Marx of 22 March 1869.
- ↑ Personages from Heinrich Heine's 'Disputation', (Romanzero, III).
- ↑ The letter in question has not been found.
- ↑ Seeking to stem the growth of the opposition in the General Association of German Workers Schweitzer proposed to join the International Working Men's Association at the general congress in Barmen-Elberfeld (see notes 311 and 318). His proposal, which was published on 3 February by Der Social-Demokrat, may be summed up as follows: 'a) the Association shares the Programme and goals of the International Working Men's Association;
'b) if the Association does not join the International, this will be solely due to the Law on Associations operating in Germany;
'c) the Association considers itself under obligation to work for a repeal of this law and the realisation of a full and unlimited right to form unions and hold assemblies; and especially to popularise the principle according to which the state has no right to use its laws to prevent a free development of a peaceful workers' movement;
'd) until it becomes possible to join the International, the Association will try, as far as it can, to remain in real accord and maintain real cooperation with the International.'
Schweitzer's proposal was approved by the general congress with an amendment introduced by Bremer, the head of the International's Magdeburg Section:
'e) each member of the General Association of German Workers has a right to be a member of the International Working Men's Association.'
In actual fact, Schweitzer refused to cooperate with Liebknecht and Bebel in uniting the German working-class movement under the International. The General Association of German Workers did not join the International.
- ↑ The Nuremberg Congress of the Union of German Workers' Associations led by Bebel was held on 5-7 September 1868. In all, 115 delegates from 93 sections in Germany, Austria and Switzerland were present. Apart from Georg Eccarius, the official representative of the General Council, several other members of the International attended. By 69 votes against 46, the Congress resolved to join the International Working Men's Association and adopted a programme recognising its basic principles. It also elected a committee of 16 to carry out this resolution. On 22 September 1868, the General Council approved the committee membership giving it the status of the Executive Committee of the International Working Men's Association in Germany. On 7 September liberal bourgeois members, who found themselves in the minority and were opposed to the Congress resolutions, announced their withdrawal from the Union. The Nuremberg Congress also resolved to organise trade unions and heard Liebknecht's report on armaments, in which he demanded that standing armies be disbanded. The Congress was an important step towards the foundation of a proletarian party in Germany.
- ↑ See this volume, p. 172.
- ↑ 'International Labour Laws', Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper, 21 March 1869.
- ↑ Marx is referring to Joseph Dietzgen's letter of 20 March 1869, in which he wrote about the success of his work in setting up a section of the International Working Men's Association in Siegburg and its environs.
- ↑ Samuel Moore and Carl Schorlemmer