Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, January 23, 1882

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 23 January 1882


First published, in Russian, in the magazine Letopisi marksizma, Book V, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928
Printed according to the original
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 46


MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV

IN PARIS

London, 23 January 1882
41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.

Dear Friend,

I enclose a few lines for the Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto";[1] as these are to be translated into Russian they have not been polished to the degree that would be necessary if they were to be published IN THE GERMAN VERNACULAR.

I have only been back in London for a few days. For as a result of pleurisy and bronchitis, from which I had recovered, I was left with chronic bronchial catarrh which my doctor[2] hoped to clear up by sending me to Ventnor (Isle of Wight), a place that is usually warm, even in winter. On this occasion, however,—during the 3 weeks of my stay there — Ventnor was invaded by cold, wet, dull, misty weather while at the same time in London the weather turned almost summery, only to change again, however, on my return.

The intention now is to send me somewhere in the south, possibly Algiers. It is a difficult choice, because Italy is barred to me (a man was arrested in Milan for having a name like mine); I can't even go from here to Gibraltar by STEAMER, as I have no passport and even the English demand a passport there.

Despite all the urging on the part of doctors and those closest to me, I would never have agreed to such a time-wasting operation were it not for the fact that this accursed 'English' disease impairs one's intellect. Moreover a relapse, even if I pulled through, would take up still more time. All the same I intend to carry out some further experiments here first.

I send you a number of Modern Thought with an article on myself; I need not tell you that the biographical notice of the author is altogether wrong. My daughter — your correspondent Eleanor, who sends you her love — has in the copy forwarded to you taken upon herself to correct the English misquotations from the Capital. But however badly Mr Bax — I hear he is quite a young man — may translate, he certainly is the first English critic who takes a real interest in modern socialism. There is a sincerity of speech and a ring of true conviction about him which strike you. A certain John Rae—I think he is lecturer of Political Economy at some English University— has, some months ago, published in The Contemporary Review an article on the same subject, very superficial (though he affects to quote many of my writings he has evidently never seen), and full of that pretence of superiority which the true Briton is inspired with thanks to a peculiar gift of stolid blockheadedness. Still he tries hard to be so condescending as to suppose, that from conviction, and not from interested motives, I am, for almost 40 years, misleading the working class by unsound doctrines! Generally speaking, people here commence to yearn for some knowledge of socialism, nihilism, and so forth. Ireland and the United States on the one hand; on the other, the impending struggle between farmers and landlords, between agricultural labourers and farmers, between capitalism and landlordism; some symptoms of revival among the industrial working class, as f. i. at some late partial elections for the House of Commons, where the official workingmen's candidates (especially the renegade of the International, miserable Howell[3] ), proposed by the acknowledged leaders of Trades' Unions and publicly recommended by Mr Gladstone, 'the people's William' — were disdainfully rejected by the workmen; the demonstrative radical clubs forming in London, mostly composed of workmen, English and Irish intermingling, dead against the 'great liberal party', official trades-unionism, and the people's William, etc. etc.— all this induces the British philistine to want just now some information on Socialism. Unfortunately, the reviews, magazines, journals, etc., exploit this 'demand' only to 'offer' the public the expectorations of venal, ignorant, and sycophantic penny-a-liners (suppose even that they are shilling-a-liners).

There appears a 'weekly', called The Radical, full of good aspirations, bold in language (the boldness is in the sans gêne,[4] not in the vigour), trying to break through the trammels of the British press, but, with all that, of feeble performance. What the paper lacks, are intelligent editors. Many months ago these people wrote to me, I was then at Eastbourne with my dear wife, then at Paris,[5] etc., so that they had not yet any interview with me. I consider it in fact useless.

The more I have read of their paper, the more I feel convinced that it is incurable.

My daughter[6] reminds me that it is high time to finish this letter, the last minutes for letter delivery being near.

Salut,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 24.
  2. ↑ Donkin See this volume, p. 163.
  3. ↑ In February and March 1877, Marx provided the English journalist Maltman Barry with advice and materials. Barry was working on essays dealing with Gladstone's foreign policy that were published by several conservative papers. The Vanity Fair of 3 March 1877, for example, carried Barry's article 'Mr. Gladstone', and of 10 March its sequel, 'The Great Agitator Unmasked'.
  4. ↑ nonchalance
  5. ↑ At the House of Commons sitting on 22 May 1876, one of the Irish M.P.s inquired of Prime Minister Disraeli whether the government intended to amnesty the Fenians who were still in prison. Disraeli stated that 15 Fenians remained imprisoned, and that the government had no intention of pardoning them since it regarded them as 'criminals and deserters'. The statement provoked a storm of indignation among the Irish M.P.s.
    The Fenians were Irish revolutionaries who had taken their name from the 'Féne', the ancient population of Ireland. Their first organisations appeared in the 1850s among the Irish immigrants in the USA, and later in Ireland itself. The secret Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as the organisation was known in the early 1860s, aimed at establishing an independent Irish republic by means of an armed uprising. The Fenians, who expressed the interests of the Irish peasantry, came chiefly from the urban petty bourgeoisie and intellectuals, and believed in conspiratorial tactics. The British government attempted to suppress the Fenian movement by severe police reprisals. In September 1865 it arrested a number of Fenian leaders, who were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment (O'Donovan Rossa received a life sentence). In 1867, following the abortive attempt at an uprising, hundreds of Irishmen were thrown into prison.
    Marx and Engels, who repeatedly pointed to the weak sides of the Fenian movement, their reliance on conspiracy and sectarian errors, nevertheless had a high regard for its revolutionary character and did their best to encourage it to embark on mass struggle and joint action with the English working class.
    In the 1870s, the Fenian movement declined.
  6. ↑ Ibid., p. 162.