MARX TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
IN GENEVA
[London,] 11 February 1873
Dear Becker,
The second FASCICLE of the French translation[1] has just been published.[2] You will have received it, if it has not been intercepted, before the arrival of these lines.
The German instalments to you and to others have obviously been intercepted. In a few weeks the whole first volume will appear[3] and I shall have it sent to you through a bookseller. I would be grateful if you could acknowledge receipt.
I can do absolutely nothing for Kostecki. 1. I am myself IN HIGH PRESSURE, I have run myself significantly into debt on behalf of Messieurs les réfugiés français, who, in consequence, do nothing but heap abuse on my head; 2. Mr Kostecki was by no means sent off because of me, far from it. He could not maintain himself in London and told me that he would go to Galicia and wanted help from the International; I told him that its coffers were empty, but added that something could possibly be done for him once he had arrived in Geneva. 3. All this took place long before the Hague Congress. Kostecki had taken his leave of me, but I met him long afterwards in the street in London and then heard nothing further. Since then everything has changed. Our ties with Galicia, where many Poles have gone from here since then, are active and in good order, and this is true also of other parts of Poland. So no new emissary is required. Moreover, Wroblewski thinks nothing of Kostecki, who is in general held in little regard by our Polish people.
I shall be writing to you in the next few days about relations within the International.[4]
Your
K. M.
- ↑ of Volume I of Capital b See this volume, p. 489.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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 Emancipacion, the organ of the Spanish Federal Council, on 25 December 1871.
- ↑ In his letter of 18 July 1870, Eugen Oswald, a German refugee, asked Marx to sign an Address on the Franco-Prussian War drawn up by a group of French and German democratic refugees. The Address was published as a leaflet on 31 July 1870; the editions that followed were signed by Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Bebel and other members of the International. Marx and his associates agreed to sign it on conditions outlined by Marx in his letter to Oswald of 3 August 1870 (see this volume, p. 34).
Oswald enclosed with his letter an excerpt from Louis Blanc's letter in which he called for the Address on the Franco-Prussian War to be signed by as many people as possible.