Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 11, 1870

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 11 May 1870


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London, ] 11 MAY 1870

DEAR FRED,

I only noted from your letter today that I had forgotten to enclose the Wilhelm.[2] It follows herewith, ditto, letter from Bracke, etc., which I must have back before Tuesday, when I intend to be on my feet again. Mainz, Darmstadt, Mannheim[3] ? Wouldn't Mannheim be best? Mainz is a Prussian fortress city.

With regard to the Welsh, I don't find the main thing in my notebooks. But this much:

The community of goods was accompanied by Celtic looseness of the marriage tie, already known in antiquity, at the same time, however, voting rights for women in the tribal assembly.' (W. Wachsmuth, 'Europäische Sittengeschichte', Zweiter Teil, Leipzig, 1833.)

Wachsmuth bases his description specifically on the laws of King Dyonwall Moelmud and Howel Ddas.[4] Leges Molmutinae. Translated by William Probert: ' THE ANCIENT LAWS OF CAMBRIA, CONTAINING THE INSTITUTIONAL TRIADS OF D. MoELMUD, THE LAWS OF HoWEL THE GoOD, TRIADICAL COMMENTARIES, CODE OF EDUCATION, AND THE HUNTING LAWS OF W A L E S ", London, 1823', and: Edward Davies, "Celtic Researches", London 1804'. I find noted in my notebooks, as curiosities:

'Precepts on ascertaining virginity. The testimony of one person suffices, e.g., that of a girl on her virginity.' 'A man who has got rid of one bed-companion because of another atones with as many denarii as are necessary to cover the bottom of the complainant. A woman who lays a plaint against a man for rape clasps his member with her left hand, lays her right upon reliquaries, and thus swears her testimony.'

'Fornication with the queen costs the double mult to the king.' The first chapter of the book on common law deals with the women. 'If his wife lay with another man and he beats her, he sacrifices his claim to indemnification... What a wife might dispose of—differing according to station—is exactly specified. The wife of a peasant (taeawgh) might only dispose of her neck-band, and might lend only her sieve, and this not further than her voice could be heard when demanding its return. The wife of a nobleman (uchelwr) could dispose of cloak, shirt, shoes, etc., but lend all her household utensils. Sufficient grounds for divorce for a wife were the man's impotence, scabies and bad breath.

Quite some lads, these Celts. But born dialecticians, everything being composed in triads. When I leave the house again I shall look up Wachsmuth on phanerogamy in the Museum.[5]

At this opportunity I have also found in my notebooks quotations from various writings on Ireland, but which you have certainly seen, or are superfluous because of better sources. One book, the title of which I cannot read properly, Cgygia or Ogygia by R. O'Flaherty, London, 1685.

Dr Charles O'Conor: Scriptores Rerum Hibernicarum. Buckingham (1814-1826, 4 volumes).

The antiquities and history of Ireland, by Jam. Ware, London, 1705; Ware, Two books of the writers of Ireland Dublin, 1709.[6]

In the case of Bakunin, either the transaction has broken down, or it has been arranged thus pour sauver les apparences.[7] Looking at things more closely, I discover, that Ogarev is the editor.[8] In the first numbers Bakunin has only one letter,0 in which he acts like a stranger, attacks the editors for lack of principles, etc., puts on airs as a socialist and internationalist, etc. Yet, WITH ALL THAT, what his letter amounts to is that, in theory, all coalitions are to be condemned, but in practice, to be sure, Ogarev is right. The main thing now is to overthrow Tsarism, and for this the unification of all parties hostile to it is necessary, etc., etc. Later they will be able to scuffle with one another, etc. Thus, 'politics' are permissible for socialists in Russia, but not for the world in Western Europe!

The Russian things I am sending you today you may keep, since I have duplicate copies.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

I shall look around for the Irish grammar as soon as I can go out again.

The state of my last letter was not the fault of the post.

  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. ↑ Liebknecht's letter (see this volume, p. 513)
  3. ↑ A reference to a suggestion by Bebel and Liebknecht that the annual congress of the International Working Men's Association should be held in 1870 in Germany, either in Mainz or Mannheim. Liebknecht wrote to Marx about this on 7 May 1870. On 9 May, the Brunswick Committee of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party sent the General Council an official proposal to hold the congress in Germany.
  4. ↑ the Good
  5. ↑ the British Museum Library
  6. ↑ A reference to the following books: R. O'Flaherty, Ogygia: seu, Rerum Hibernicarum Chronologia. In très partes. Londini, 1685; Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres, Tomes I-IV, Buckingham, 1814-1826, ed. Ch. O'Conor; J. Ware, Inquiries concerning Ireland and its Antiquities, Dublin, 1705; J. Ware, Two Books of the Writers of Ireland, Dublin, 1704.
  7. ↑ to save appearances Kojimojia', Kolokol, No. 2, 9 April 1870.
  8. ↑ A reference to Kolokol, the Russian revolutionary democratic newspaper edited by Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Ogarev. It was published in Russian in 1857-67, and in French with Russian supplements in 1868-70, in London up to 1865 and later in Geneva. After Herzen's death in 1870, an attempt to keep up the newspaper was made by Sergei Nechayev, who was in close contact with Bakunin. This is probably what Marx means. Six issues appeared in April-Mav 1870.