Letter to Friedrich Bolte, August 25, 1871

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 25 August 1871


First published in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
Printed according to the book
Published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895, International Publishers, New York, 1953
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO FRIEDRICH BOLTE

IN NEW YORK

Brighton, 25 August 1871

Dear Mr Bolte,

I have been here for about two weeks, sent by the doctor because my health was very much impaired as a result of overwork. I shall probably return to London next week, however.[1]

Next week you will receive an Appeal by the General Council for the refugee Communards.[2] Most of them are in London (over 80 to 90 by now). The General Council has kept them above water up to now, but in the past two weeks our funds have been melting away just like that, while the number of arrivals increases daily, so that they are in a very deplorable condition. I hope that everything possible will be done from New York. In Germany all the resources of the party are still absorbed by the victims of the police persecution there, as is the case in Austria, ditto Spain and Italy. In Switzerland they not only have a part of the refugees themselves to support, albeit a small part, but they also have to aid the members of the International as a result of the St Gallen LOCKOUT.[3] Lastly, there are also some refugees in Belgium, though only a few and, what is more, the Belgians have to aid them, particularly in getting them through to London.

Owing to these circumstances, up to the present all the funds for the bulk of the refugees in London have been raised exclusively in England.

The General Council now includes the following members of the Commune: Serraillier, Vaillant, Theisz, Longuet and Frankel, and the following agents of the Commune: Delahaye, Rochat, Bastelica and Chalain.

I have sent The New-York Herald a statement in which I disclaim all responsibility for its correspondent's absurd and wholly distorted report of his conversation with me.[4] I do not know whether it has printed the statement.

Give Sorge my regards. I shall answer his letter next week.[5]

Faithfully yours,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ Between 16 and 29 August 1871 Marx stayed at Brighton where, on his doctor's advice, he received treatment for overstrain.
  2. ↑ The Appeal to members of the American sections of the International to raise money for the Paris Commune refugees was written by Marx and sent to Sorge, as can be seen from Marx's letter to Sorge of 5 September (see this volume, p. 211). The text of the Appeal has not been found.
  3. ↑ A strike by dressers started on 11 June 1871 at clothing factories in St Gallen (Switzerland). Eight hundred strikers who had resolved at their meeting to join the International were sacked. The support of the Swiss sections of the International enabled the strikers to hold out until September, secure reinstatement for the sacked workers, and win a reduction of the working day by one hour.
  4. ↑ On 3 August 1871 The New-York Herald published a report from its London correspondent about his meeting with Marx on 20 July 1871. The author distorted the content of their talk. Le Gaulois published excerpts from this report and Marx sent its editor a copy of the relevant statement which he had sent to The New-York Herald. Marx's statement was published in Le Gaulois, No. 1145, 27 August 1871 (see present edition, Vol. 22, p. 395); it did not appear in the Herald.
  5. ↑ See this volume, pp. 211 and 217.