Letter to Ludwig and Gertrud Kugelmann, May 12, 1873

Author(s) Jenny Marx Longuet
Written 12 May 1873


First published in german in Istorichesky arkhiv, No. 2, Moscow, 1959
First published in English in Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Publishers, Vol. II, [Hanover] 1962
Reproduced from the original in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44

LONGUET TO LUDWIG AND GERTRUD KUGELMANN

IN HANOVER

London, 12 May 1873

My dear friends,

I should be really grieved if I thought you had all this time been looking upon me as a faithless friend—but no—you must surely know me well enough to have attributed my silence to everything but want of friendship. And indeed everything but that has been the cause of it. Ever since Christmas I have been altogether absorbed by the delightful battle known as the struggle for life. Were I to enumerate all the races I have run from the north to the south, from the east to the west of London—and run in vain—to pick up pupils for French, German, singing and elocution, I should sadly tire you. The result of all this has been the acquisition of a vast amount of experience, a thorough insight into the shameless impossible tricks of advertisers, agents, principals of schools etc. Though like Shakespeare's Rosalind I would rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad[1] —yet in this case I do not regret my hard earned experience—for I hope some day to make known to the public the machinations of these ghouls of middlemen and thus to save others from the snares into which I have fallen. My husband[2] has not been more successful than myself in this land of liberty and free competition. Of course if we had chosen to settle down somewhere in the provinces, to vegetate in some corner out of the world, we might have found employment long ago—but though married, my heart is as it ever was chained to the spot where my Papa is, and elsewhere life would not be life to me. If all fails however I suppose I must leave him... But sufficient for the day is the evil thereof[3] —I will not think of it beforehand.

I have yet to thank you for your last letters, my dear friends. To you, my dear Doctor, I need not write a line in answer to your opinion of the representatives of the Jura at the Congress.[4] Time has taken the trouble to do that for me, and to do it far more effectually than I could have done. Those miserable intriguers whose sole object is to sow dissension in the Association and to reap the benefit thereof, have been all along treated far too generously by their opponents.—Have you seen the last production of that infamous lump of vanity, Jung, in the Liberté[5] ? The lies he tells of my husband he has concocted together with a quondam revolutionist who has now settled down as flunkey in an English gentleman's family, and is content to figure as 'calves'. A companion worthy of the illustrious Jung!

There is no truth whatever in the rumour to which you allude of Papa's going to America.—

The second volume of Das Kapital does not progress at all, as the French translation,[6] which has to be almost entirely re-written, takes up the whole of Mohr's time. What do you think of it and of the epilogue to the second edition[7] of Das Kapital}

To you, dear Trautchen,[8] I need not say that I think of you very very often and that I long to see you again,—you and dear Fränzchen.[9] Does that young lady still recollect a certain by-by[10] of old? Give her my best love. Mohr sends you and Wenzel many greetings in which my husband and mama join. He will write to you soon.

Very faithfully yours,

Jenny

  1. ↑ Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act IV, Scene 1.
  2. ↑ Charles Longuet
  3. ↑ Matthew 6:34
  4. ↑ On 19 July 1872 at the meeting of the General Council Executive Committee (Sub-Committee; see Note 435), Engels was instructed to prepare the financial report for the Hague Congress covering the period since the London Conference in September 1871. The report was read out by Engels at the Hague Congress sitting of 7 September 1872, and unanimously approved.
    Marx and Engels arrived at The Hague to take part in the Congress on 1 September 1872. On 8 September they travelled to Amsterdam, where they took part in the meeting marking the closure of the Congress. Engels returned to London on 12 September, and Marx around 17 September 1872.
    The Fifth Congress of the International Working Men's Association was held on 2-7 September 1872 in The Hague and attended by 65 delegates from 15 national organisations. Its decision to include in the General Rules (as Article 7a) the major tenet on the conquest of political power by the proletariat, and its resolutions relating to Administrative Regulations signified a victory for Marxism. The Congress took stock of the struggle Marx, Engels and their followers had waged for years against petty-bourgeois sectarianism in the workers' movement, in whatever guise it appeared, most notably against Bakuninism; Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume, the anarchist leaders, were expelled from the International. The resolutions of the Hague Congress laid the groundwork for the future formation of independent political parties of the working class on a national level.
  5. ↑ H. Jung, 'Monsieur le rédacteur...', La Liberté, No. 18, 4 May 1873.
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ Gertrud Kugelmann
  9. ↑ Franziska Kugelmann
  10. ↑ Jenny's nickname coined by Marx