Letter to Eugen Oswald, September 14, 1870

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 14 September 1870


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 33, Moscow, 1964
Printed according to the typewritten copy
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO EUGEN OSWALD

IN LONDON

[London,] 14 September 1870

Dear Oswald,

Enclosed are 50 COPIES of our new Address.[1] There are a few printing errors in it, but they do not distort the meaning. We shall correct them in the SECOND EDITION.

Our Central Committee for Germany (residing in Brunswick) issued a manifesto to the German workers on 5 September, opposing the ANNEXATION of Alsace and Lorraine and advocating the recognition of the French Republic, etc.[2] On the orders of Vogel von Falckenstein not only were the copies of the manifesto confiscated, but also all the members of the Committee—and the unfortunate printer,[3] were arrested INTO THE BARGAIN and transported as a body to Lötzen[4] in East Prussia.[5] I have immediately sent reports of the affair[6] to various London papers and shall see if they print them.

The victory in yesterday's meeting over the people who were partly in the pay of the PEACE SOCIETY, and partly unindoctrinated, was QUITE ACCIDENTAL. We were just holding the usual Tuesday meeting of the General Council of the International when our friends telegraphed from the Strand TO COME TO THE RESCUE since they would otherwise have been out-voted. And this is just what we did.[7]

You must forgive me for not answering sooner. I am so [overwhelmed] with INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS that, since my return,[8] I have been unable to get to bed before three in the morning.

Liebknecht has foolishly forgotten to give me a secret address. All letters sent direct to him are INTERCEPTED by the police.

I shall look out some copies of the Volksstaat for you, but I must have them back, together with those I have already given you, since I am collecting them.

Yours,

K. Marx

  1. ↑ K. Marx, 'Second Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco Prussian War'.
  2. ↑ At the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War members of the German colony in Manchester (Carl Schorlemmer, G. Beer, J. G. Wehner and others) organ ised a committee to assist the war victims. Engels joined the committee but in September 1870, when the war ceased to be defensive on the German side, he withdrew.
  3. ↑ Sievers
  4. ↑ Polish name: Gizycko.
  5. ↑ On 9 September 1870 Wilhelm Bracke, Leonhard von Bonhorst, Spier, Kühn, Gralle, and Ehlers, members of the Brunswick Committee of the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party, as well as Sievers, a printer, were arrested for publishing the Manifesto on the war on 5 September (see Note 107). In November 1871 these members of the Brunswick Committee were brought to trial (see Note 335).
  6. ↑ K. Marx, 'Concerning the Arrest of the Members of the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Workers' Party'.
  7. ↑ The Demagogues in Germany were the participants in the students' opposition movement after the liberation of the country from Napoleonic rule. After the 1830 Revolution in France the opposition movement of the so-called demagogues became more intense in Germany and gave rise to renewed police repression and arrests and increased emigration.
  8. ↑ Marx and his family were on vacation in Ramsgate from 9 to 31 August 1870.