Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, May 27, 1872

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 27 May 1872


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 original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

[London,] 27 May 1872

My dear Sorge,

I am flooded out with proofs, French proofs[1] (where I have to re-write an enormous amount that has been translated too literally) and German proofs,[2] all of which have to be sent off.[3] I can therefore only write you a few lines.

I am sending you the German and French versions of the General Council declaration on the farce of the Conseil fédéraliste universel etc.'.''[4] Ditto notre circulaire privée sur les Jurassiens.'6 (More to follow, as soon as we have the copies in quantity.) Eccarius handed in his resignation before his CASE was investigated.[5] Provisionally, Le Moussu is responsible for toute l'Amérique (we also have contacts in South America now). Send everything to me since I see Le Moussu every day, and do not send anything to Hales, who keeps on doing the stupidest things simply out of a desire to seem important. There is an enquête[6] pending against him as well as Eccarius because of the American affaire[7] .

Eccarius has become both a fool and a scoundrel. I shall write to you about it in greater detail in the course of this week.

I shall insist on the 1,000 COPIES[8] tomorrow in the GENERAL COUNCIL.

Yours,

K. Marx

  1. ↑ The surviving manuscript copy of the letter does not bear the name of the addressee. However, its contents and Marx's correspondence on the subject indicate that it was addressed to the heads of the Lachâtre publishing house in Paris. On 13 February 1872 Marx received a reply from the manager Juste Vernouillet, who informed him about the despatch of copies of the agreement on the publication of the French translation of Volume I of Capital. The agreement was signed on 15 February by Marx on one side, and Maurice Lachâtre and Juste Vernouillet on the other. It stipulated that the French edition was to be published in 44 instalments, and sold five instalments at a time.
    The French authorised edition of Volume I of Capital was published between 17 September 1872 and November 1875. The translation was done by Joseph Roy, who began in February 1872 and completed work in late 1873. The quality of the translation largely failed to satisfy Marx; besides, he was convinced that the original needed to be revised to adapt it to French readers.
  2. ↑ A reference to the 'Circulaire à toutes les fédérations de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs' adopted at Sonvillier on 12 November 1871 (see Note 374). It was printed in La Emancipation, the organ of the Spanish Federal Council, on 25 December 1871.
  3. ↑ This refers to the proofs of the second German and the French edition of Volume I of Capital
  4. ↑ K. Marx, 'Declaration of the General Council Concerning the Universal Federalist Council'.
  5. ↑ This is a reply to Eccarius' letter of 2 May 1872, which he had written following the General Council's discussion of his behaviour in dealing with the split in the Central Committee of the International Working Men's Association for North America.
    After the General Council meetings of 5 and 12 March 1872 had approved the relevant resolutions proposed by Marx, John Hales (Council Secretary) and Eccarius (Corresponding Secretary for the USA) took up a conciliatory position towards the American bourgeois reformist elements. Eccarius opposed the expulsion of Section No. 12 and spoke out against Article 2 of Resolution III (see Note 471), accusing Friedrich Adolph Sorge and Section No. 1 (see Note 354), which he headed, of divisive activities. He refused to send the above-mentioned resolutions to the USA, stating in a number of letters (e.g. to petty-bourgeois activist John Elliott) that he strongly disapproved of them.
    On 23 April 1872 the General Council meeting instructed Marx to prepare a detailed report on Eccarius' stand.
    Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx, On the First International Arranged and edited, with an introduction and new translations by Saul K. Padover. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1973.
  6. ↑ investigation
  7. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, Fictitious Splits in the International
  8. ↑ of the General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International Working Men's Association