Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, December 3, 1875

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 3 December 1875


First published in full, in Russian, in Letopisi marksizma, Book V, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV[1]

IN LONDON

[London,] 3 December 1875
41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.

My dear Friend,

A carbuncle (and on my left nipple to boot)—which you may actually inspect for yourself by coming to call on me—makes it quite impossible for me to go out in the evening to attend the meeting of 4 December. For that matter, I should only have reiterated the opinion I have upheld for the past thirty years,[2] namely that the emancipation of Poland is one of the precondi- tions for the emancipation of the working class in Europe. The new conspiracies of the Holy Alliance 143 provide further proof of this.

Yours ever,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ An extract from this letter pertaining to the liberation of Poland was read by Walery Wröblewski at a meeting held in London on 4 December 1875 to mark the anniversary of the Polish uprising of 1830 and published on 31 December 1875 by the newspaper Vperyod! (Forward!), No. 24, as part of the article 'Anniversary of the 1830 Polish Uprising'.
  2. ↑ Marx's and Engels' first public speeches on the Polish question were made at the international meeting held in London on 29 November 1847 to commemo rate the 17th anniversary of the 1830 Polish uprising (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 545-52).