Letter to Matilda Betham-Edwards, July 14, 1875

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 14 July 1875


First published abridged in Sotheby and Co. Catalogue of Valuable Printed Books, Autograph Letters, Historical Documents, etc., London, 1952, and in full, in Chinese, in Marx/Engels, Collected Works, Renmin Publishers, Beijing, 1972, and in the language of the original (English, facsimile) in Renmin Ribao, Beijing, 9 March 1983
Reproduced from the facsimile
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO MATILDA BETHAM-EDWARDS

IN LONDON

[London,] 14 July 1875
41 Maitland Park Crescent, N. W. Sir,[1]

In your article 'The International Working Men's Association'[2] there occur matter-of-facts errors to some of which I shall call your attention. But before doing so, allow me to express my astonishment at your statement:

'We believe that an abbreviated translation of this work' (Das Kapital) 'is to be brought out shortly.'

I have reserved the right of translation and there exists a copyright treaty between Germany and England.[3] I shall, therefore, certainly stop the circulation of any such epitome, not beforehand authorised by me. Abbreviation affords the traduttore[4] peculiar facilities to turn traditore.[5] Even the revision of the not-abbreviated French translation, published in livraisons[6] at Paris, has given me more trouble than the re-writing the whole book in French would have done.[7]

Supposing that you know the translator, and being anxious to avoid the nuisance of law-proceedings, I have taken the liberty to write to you upon this subject.

With regard to the matter-of-fact errors occurring in your article, I shall limit myself to a few items.

You say:

'Das Kapital came out soon after Proudhon's essays on the Fallacies of Political Economy, and in a little chapter called the Miseries of Philosophy Marx answered Proudhon's chapter on the Philosophy of Misery', etc.

It was Proudhon's voluminous work: Systeme des Contradictions Economiques ou Philosophie de la Misère, to which I replied by the brochure, written in French, Misère de la Philosophie.[8] The latter was published in 1847, but Das Kapital only twenty years later, in 1867. I suppose that you have been led into error by Fribourg's most untrustworthy publication on the 'International'.[9]

Not being aware that, when giving in full the preamble of the Rules, and parts of the Inaugural Address of the International, you were actually quoting writings from my pen, you reprint from an address, nameless and dateless, a proposition which, you say, 'must have come from the pen of Dr Marx himself.' Unfortunately, they did not. I never saw that address before I read it in the columns of Fraser.[10] It has evidently been indited by one of my adherents, but, at the same time, contains some loose phraseology I was not delighted to have fathered upon me.

Mazzini and Blanqui had never any 'correspondence' whatever with the General Council of the International. When the International was founded, some Italian workmen, partisans of Mazzini, and one Major Wolff (whom papers, detected at the time of the Paris Commune, have proved to have been a police spy, in the regular pay of the Bonapartist préfet de police), his agent, became members of the General Council. Wolff proposed an Inaugural Address and Rules which, it was known, had been written by Mazzini. Both documents being rejected, and those drawn up by me being accepted, Mazzini, soon after, induced his partisans to secede from the General Council, and remained, from that time to his death, the most irreconcilable enemy of the International.

Orsini[11] (the brother of the Italian patriot) was never present at the sittings of the General Council and never gave it any account, interesting or otherwise, of any subject whatever. He had some private correspondence with me, relating to his doings in the U. States.

Potter was never a member of the 'International'. Hales was not present at the Basle Congress,[12] etc.

I have the honour, Sir,

To be yours most respectfully,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ When Marx wrote this letter, he probably did not know that the author of the article, 'The International Working Men's Association', was a woman.
  2. ↑ The article was published anonymously in Fraser's Magazine, Nos. LXVII-LXIX, July to September 1875.
  3. ↑ The copyright treaty was signed by the free city of Hamburg and Great Britain on 16 August 1853. Article 2 of the treaty covered translations.
  4. ↑ translator
  5. ↑ traitor
  6. ↑ instalments
  7. ↑ A reference to the French edition of the first volume of Capital. An attempt to translate Marx's principal work into French was first made by Charles Keller, a member of the Paris Section of the International. Between October 1869 and April 1870, he translated about 400 pages which he sent to Marx for editing. After the defeat of the Paris Commune, however, Keller was forced to emigrate to Switzerland, where he embraced Bakuninist views, after which Marx terminated co-operation with him.
    In December 1871, Paul Lafargue assisted Marx in concluding a contract for the publication of Capital with the progressive French journalist and publisher Maurice Lachâtre. The contract was signed on 15 February 1872. Under it, Capital was to appear in 44 instalments, one printer's sheet each. The work appeared between 1872 and 1875 in two instalments at a time, but was sold in series of five instalments each, making nine series in all.
    The last instalments having come out, the series were stitched together and sold as separate books.
    The first volume of Capital was translated into French by Joseph Roy. Marx did not think much of the effort and made a vast number of alterations, in fact, revised the book. As he himself said, the authorised French translation had an independent scientific value alongside the German original.
    In this edition, the first volume of Capital is published in Engels' authorised English translation with the interpolations from the French edition given in the Appendix (see present edition, Vol. 35).
  8. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 6.
  9. ↑ E. E. Fribourg, L'Association Internationale des Travailleurs.
  10. ↑ K. Marx, 'Inaugural Address of the Working Men's International Association' and 'Provisional Rules of the Association'. Fraser's Magazine
  11. ↑ Cesare Orsini
  12. ↑ The Basle Congress of the International Working Men's Association was held between 6 and 11 September 1869. Present at it were 78 delegates from eight major European countries. For the first time the International's congress was attended by an American, the delegate of the National Labor Union of the United States, Andrew Carr Cameron.
    The congress heard a report written by Marx on the instructions of the General Council and stressing the International's role in leading the strike movement.
    The issues of landed property and the right of inheritance figured prominently at the congress. To all intents and purposes the Basle Congress resolution confirmed that of the Brussels Congress on the abolition of private ownership of land. No decision was taken on the question of abolishing the right of inheritance as the resolution submitted for consideration by the congress failed to win the required number of votes.
    There was almost no disagreement on the resolution recommending the workers to set up trade unions in all industries and to form associations on a nationwide scale. Defence of the workers' interests and a campaign to replace the wage labour system by 'associated free labour' were proclaimed the trade unions' main tasks.
    The Basle Congress also took a number of decisions directed at consolidating the International's organisation, extending the functions of the General Council and enhancing its role as the leading body of the International Working Men's Association. Paris was chosen as the venue for the next congress, scheduled for 1870.