Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 4, 1869

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 4 August 1869


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


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 4 August[1] 1869

DEAR FRED,

£ 1 0 0 received with BEST THANKS. I SHALL NOW WATCH THE PROCEEDINGS so

CLOSELY THAT SIMILAR MISTAKES, e t C.

I am by no means in top form. The arm business is in the last stage of healing. I attribute my further indisposition to the weather, and I gulp Gumpert's liver medicine against it.

Yesterday there was a tragicomical meeting of the General Council. Dunning letters for cards, rent, arrears of secretary's salary, etc. In short, INTERNATIONAL BANKRUPTCY, so we can't yet see how we can send a delegate.b On the other hand, a letter from Geneva, FRENCH SIDE, in which the General Council was politely requested to issue a circular in the 3 languages advising all the members to collect money (and this immediately) for the purchase of a building in Geneva (for MEETINGS), which would cost only £5,000 and should become the property of the 'International'. Is this not a modest presumption on the part of these fellows, who have not yet paid their Id. per man!

Becker, the chief of the German tongue,[2] sends 280d for his 'myriads'.

The gist of the story is this: the local committees (including central committees) spend too much money and tax their people too highly for their national or local needs, and leave nothing over for the General Council. Money is always there to print idiotic addresses to the Spaniards[3] etc., and for other FOLLIES. We shall be forced to declare to the next congress, either in written or

spoken form, that we cannot continue to run the General Council in this way; but that they should be so kind, before they give us successors, to pay our debts, which would reach a much higher figure if most of our secretaries did not personally cover correspondence costs.

If only I could somewhere see people who would not involve us in stupidities, I would greet with the greatest pleasure the exit of the Central Council[4] from here. The business is becoming

ennuyant? Salut.

El

Moro

Beesly married on 24 July.

  1. ↑ 3 August in the original •> to the Basle Congress
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 335.
  3. ↑ A reference to the address of the Geneva Central Committee to the Spanish revolutionaries, 'Der Internationale Arbeiterbund von Genf an die Arbeiter Spaniens' issued on 21 October 1868. It was published as a separate leaflet in German and in French and in Der Vorbote, No. 12, December 1868.
  4. ↑ Marx is referring to the General Council of the First International which, up to the end of 1866, was usually referred to as the Central Council.