Letter to Eugen Oswald, September 23, 1870

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 23 September 1870


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


MARX TO EUGEN OSWALD

IN LONDON

[London,] 23 September 1870

Dear Oswald,

Herewith the Volksstaat (Nos. 72-76) and the Volkswille (No. 34), both of which I must have back by Monday NEXT.

I only receive occasional copies of the Zukunft. The copies that Engels has have not yet been unpacked, any more than the rest of the furniture he has JUST brought down from Manchester. This is also the reason why I cannot yet accept your kind invitation. I must first get Engels AND his FAMILY settled in.

I am toto ovelo[1] opposed to your neutralisation plan and have already expressed my views to this effect in detail after hearing about the plan from another direction.

If people were SERIOUSLY concerned about the military security of Germany, it would meet the case exactly if the fortresses of Metz and Strasbourg were to be razed to the ground.

Bismarck knows this. He also knows that on this side neutralisation can achieve no more and that it would contribute much less, in fact nothing, towards the reconciliation with France that will again become necessary in the future. It is one of those measures that ruin everything and settle nothing.

Consider further that the entire opposition in Germany is only a real power, a power that grows as a result of persecution by the government, because and insofar as it makes a strong stand on principle.

This is appreciated not only by the workers but even by people like Jacoby, people like Ludwig Simon of Trier and even Jakob Venedey! Once such a motley opposition starts playing around with diplomacy, all is lost. It would gain nothing at all through such diplomacy but on the contrary, by involving itself with it would lose the right to declare: Annex, IF YOU PLEASE. We declare these annexations non avenues[2] .

Du reste[3] Jules Favre, and not Thiers, is the man of the moment. Razing the fortresses was first proposed in the official Journal de Pétersbourg[4] and was taken up at once by the French Provisional Government. If anything is powerful enough to break the hold of the military canaille on the handsome William[5] it is such hints from Petersburg.

Yours,

K. M.

  1. ↑ quite definitely
  2. ↑ invalid
  3. ↑ Moreover
  4. ↑ On 19 September 1870 The Times (under the heading 'Russia') published an excerpt from the Journal de Saint-Pétersbourg of 17 September 1870 stating that France's prestige would not suffer if, in concluding a peace treaty, she agreed to demolish her fortresses on the border with Germany.
  5. ↑ William I