Brief Account of Marx's Letters to Carl Hirsch, January 31, 1875 to February 20, 1878

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 31 January 1875


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 34, Moscow, 1964
Printed according to C. Hirsch's file from the archives of the Paris Prefecture of Police
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


BRIEF ACCOUNT OF MARX'S LETTERS TO CARL HIRSCH[1]

IN PARIS

On 31 January 1875 K. Marx sends Hirsch a letter relating to the work Misère de la Philosophie[2] printed at his expense (1,500 copies) by a Mr Vogler, a publisher in Brussels. In this letter he says also that Vernouillet, who sends him letters, is a very sensible man; finally he asks him how long it is since he saw Freund and Mesa; the last address which he had for Freund was: 53, route de Versailles (Auteuil).

On 10 December 1875 Karl Marx, 41 Maitland Park Road, London, N. W., writes to Hirsch concerning his book Le Capital, speaks of Lachâtre in Vevey (Switzerland) and of Kaub.

On 16 February 1876 Karl Marx invites Hirsch to pay a visit to his good friend Lopatin, 25, rue Gay Lussac, and advises him to make his acquaintance.

On 4 May 1876 Karl Marx informs C. Hirsch that a certain Henri Oriol, 177, rue St Denis, an employee at the Lachâtre bookshop, has written to him that the Rappel asked him for a review of the work Le Capital, and Mr Oriol is asking me, Marx says, for an article about this work, a kind of key which could also serve as an introduction.[3]

K. Marx also asks for news of Kaub.

On 23 September 1876 K. Marx writes to Hirsch: The day before yesterday I came back from Karlsbad.[4] On my arrival I found a letter from Lavrov relating to the book Le Capital, the publication of which is to be banned in France, as he was told by his agent in Paris, Guyot of the Palais Royal.3 He sends greetings from the Kaub family.

On 10 April 1877 Karl Marx asks Hirsch for information about the Galliffet and Madame de Beaumont affair.[5] He adds that the Vorwärts called Galliffet a 'dog'. He also asks him for the result of the scandalous trial of the 'simpleton' Louis Blanc (sic) against the Russian Panayev.

On 14 May 1877, in a letter to Hirsch, K. Marx speaks of gens[6] Kaub, hostile to the Tsar, whom he calls a 'Kindernhund',[7] child murderer.D64 But the sentry protects him.

On 1 August 1877 K. Marx writes a socialist letter to Hirsch in which the names of Höchberg, Engels, Elisée Reclus and Arnould figure, and against the Protestant pastors of Germany.

On 20 February 1878 Karl Marx informs Hirsch that he has learnt from Lissagaray that a large number of people, supporters of the F. Pyat Commune, are working again to restore that harlequin Thiers who has done so much harm to the Commune; further on he says: Louis Blanc at least had the courage not to lick the boots of Mr Thiers as J. Favre, Simon, etc., did.

[8]

  1. ↑ These summaries of Marx's letters to Hirsch were made by the French police and kept in Hirsch's file in the Paris Police Prefecture's archive. Marx's original letters were confiscated during Hirsch's arrest on 6 September 1878. The Vorwärts, No. 111 of 20 September (Supplement), reported this in the correspondence from Paris of 9 September.
  2. ↑ K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy.
  3. ↑ In his letter of 13 April 1876, Henri Oriol wrote that his request for a review of the French edition of the first volume of Capital 'was purely personal' and connected with his wish to help with republican propaganda.
  4. ↑ Between 15 August and 15 September 1876, Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor (Tussy), was in Karlsbad taking a cure for the third time. Having completed it, he spent a few days with Max Oppenheim in Prague, and then, after brief visits to Kreuznach and Liège, returned to London on 22 September 1876.
  5. ↑ A reference to the scandal involving General Galliffet and Madame de Beaumont. In all probability, Marx first learned about it from the Vorwärts, which on 6 April 1877 carried an item beginning with the words 'The Nemesis has grabbed another one by the hair!' in the 'Sozialpolitische Uebersicht' column. The author went on to say that about two weeks previously, at a ball in Paris, in a fit of jealousy Galliffet had seriously wounded his mistress Mme de Beaumont, President Mac-Mahon's sister-in-law, and had consequently been imprisoned. The Paris papers hushed up the scandal. The Vorwärts viewed this unsavoury story, with a hangman of the Paris Commune as its protagonist, as striking proof of the degeneration of bourgeois society. Marx learned the details of the scandal from Carl Hirsch, who arrived in London from Paris about 20 July.
  6. ↑ here: the family of
  7. ↑ thus in the police statement
  8. ↑ See this volume, p. 153.