| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 15 January 1882 |
MARX TO ENGELS
IN LONDON
[Ventnor,] 15 January 1882
DEAR FRED,
BEST THANKS FOR THE £ 20. I have resolved to leave tomorrow as the weather is getting progressively 'colder', which does my swollen cheek no good. So I shall lose only 2 days, and this will also save Tussy the double journey.
Though repeatedly warned, our people in Paris have got themselves into a nice mess[1] (SERVES Lafargue AND Guesde RIGHT); however, since they possess two papers,[2] they may, with a little ingenuity, nevertheless gain command of the field.
I regard it as a major victory, not only in Germany itself but vis-à-vis the outside world GENERALLY, that Bismarck should admit in the Reichstag that the German workers have to some extent 'given the thumbs down' to his state socialism. London's rascally bourgeois press always sought to disseminate the opposite.
I have received an extraordinarily kind letter from OLD Frankel from the 'state prison', ditto a letter from Wrôblewski who was évidemment writing on behalf of his Polish party in Geneva; but in his haste he forgot to append not only the party's name but also his own.
If, as Joffrin relates in his factum in the Prolétaire he once staged a pro-Guesde demonstration in London against the 'International' there, it was at all events such a platonic demonstration that no one knew anything about it apart from Joffrin himself and perhaps a few of his closest accomplices, i. e. it was carried out entirely in 'private'.
Salut.
Your
Moor