Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, June 18, 1871

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 18 June 1871


Source: Karl Marx, Letters to Dr Kugelmann (Martin Lawrence, London, undated).
Published in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44

Dear Kugelmann

You must forgive my silence, even now I have only time to write a few lines. You know that throughout the period of the last Paris revolution I was denounced continuously as the grand chef de l'Internationale by the Versailles papers (Stieber[1] collaborating) and par repercussion[2] by the press here in England.

And now the Address, which you will have received. It is making the devil of a noise and I have the honour to be at this moment the best calumniated and the most menaced man of London. That really does one good after a tedious twenty years' idyll in my den. The government paper – the Observer – threatens me with a legal prosecution. Qu'ils osent! Je me moque bien de ces canailles là![3] I am enclosing a cutting from the Eastern Post,[4] because it has our answer to Jules Favre's[5] circular. It appeared originally in the Times of 13 June. That honourable paper received a severe reprimand from Mr Bob Lowe[6] (Chancellor of the Exchequer and member of the Supervisory Committee of the Times) for this indiscretion.

My best thanks for the Reuters and my best compliments to Madame la Comtesse et ma chère Fränzchen.

KM

  1. ↑ Wilhelm Stieber (1818-1882) – Chief of the political department of the Prussian police and organiser of the famous Communist trial at Cologne in 1852 – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.
  2. ↑ By repercussion – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.
  3. ↑ Let them dare! I laugh at these scoundrels! – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.
  4. ↑ Although signed by John Hales, this answer of the General Council was written by Marx.
  5. ↑ Jules Favre (1809-1880) – French politician. Member of the Government of 'National Defence' in 1870-71. One of the bitterest enemies of the Commune – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.
  6. ↑ Robert Lowe (Viscount Sherbrooke) (1811-1892) – Liberal statesman and member of Palmerston's cabinet – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.