Letter to Friedrich Engels, July 29, 1869

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 29 July 1869


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


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 29 JULY 1869

DEAR FRED,

Enclosed the letter from Kugelmann.[1]

Things are better with the arm. Started with the arsenic. The Bee-Hive is now under the control of Samuel Morley, since when everything too anti-bourgeois in the REPORTS on our sessions is crossed out. For instance my entire exposition about Roman and German testate and intestate inheritance law at the last session of the GENERAL COUNCIL.[2] During my stay in Paris[3] the fellows committed some stupidities, i.e. admitting 5 MEMBERS of the Bronterre O'Brien Society,[4] fellows who are just as dumb and ignorant as they are quarrelsome and conceited about their sectarian secret wisdom.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

Jennychen has received her 'little fortune'.[5] The dear child feels very happy about her 'own income'.

  1. ↑ On 13 July 1869 Ludwig Kugelmann wrote to Engels about his intention to ask Marx to prolong his stay in Hanover so that they could go to Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary) for a cure together. While they were absent, Marx's daughter Jenny was to stay with Gertrud Kugelmann in Hanover. On 17 July 1869, Kugelmann replied to Marx's letter of 15 July, in which he again asked Marx to go with him to Karlsbad in August.
  2. ↑ A reference to the General Council meeting of 20 July 1869, at which Marx made a speech on the right of inheritance as part of the preparations for the Basle Congress. A report of the meeting was printed by The Bee-Hive, No. 406, 24 July 1869, but was not accurate. Marx's speech, which has been preserved in its original form in the minutes taken by Eccarius, is reproduced in the present edition (see Vol. 21, p. 394).
  3. ↑ See Note 381.
  4. ↑ A reference to the National Reform League set up in 1849 in London by Chartist leaders James (Bronterre) O'Brien, Reynolds, etc. The League's goal was to attain universal suffrage and introduce social reforms. In 1866, it joined the International and worked under the guidance of the General Council, having turned into a branch of the Reform League. The latter's leaders, Alfred Walton and George Milner, were members of the General Council and participants in a number of the International's congresses.
  5. ↑ See this volume, pp. 327 and 330.