Letter to Friedrich Engels, January 10, 1883

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 January 1883


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 46


MARX TO ENGELS

IN LONDON

[Ventnor,] 10 January 1883

Dear FRED,

It was very good of you to forward me Lafargue's letter so promptly.[1] It reassured me very much, the more so since, by the same post today, I heard direct from Lafargue, according to whom a turn for the better would seem to be assured. I entirely share your view that Johnny ought under no circumstances to leave just now. There can be no question of that until Jenny has completely recovered. It would be unpardonable to add to the difficulty of the child's position. I shall write to Longuet direct this very day. I should be glad if you could drop Jennychen a few lines to the same effect. After all, it's not as though Johnny is going to be lost pour l'armée territoriale.[2]

It is curious how, nowadays, any sort of nervous excitement immediately grips me by the throat, as red Wolff did his brother, the corn profiteer.[3] Alias, the initial shock of the bad news from Paris a few days ago induced a fit of spasmodic coughing during which I thought I was going to choke. Poor Jennychen must often have suffered from this highly DISTRESSING FEELING during the course of her asthma.

As for 'little Hepner', I suggest we treat him in a 'businesslike' way, telling him that he is at liberty to reprint our preface to the Leipzig edition[4] and also pointing out that the Russians published a new translation last year.[5] If he doesn't consider it worth while to reprint the Manifesto without our writing another special preface, he can take it or leave it, as he thinks fit in the circumstances. 'Holding a pistol to one's head' comes as second nature to 'our people' and, where little Hepner is concerned, it's something we have to accept as a matter of course.

POOR Meissner has sent me a statement of accounts for 1881,[6] saying it had been a poor year; not that this really signifies for, by his own account, he was getting 'short' of copies in 1882; so the fewer he sold in 1881, the more he must have sold in 1882. My prolonged silence must have bamboozled him. At last Mahomet will be going to him, though not, alas, what he would greatly prefer—a bundle of revised sheets.[7] Since my long—and only seldom interrupted—confinement to the house first began, but especially as a result of constant nausea or, to use the more aesthetic South German expression à la Madame Karl Blind, née Cohen,[8] as a result of daily puking (caused by my cough), I have up till now been scarcely capable of pressing on with the revision. But I believe that, given patience and rigorous self-discipline, I shall soon get back onto the rails again.

Moor

  1. ↑ This letter from Marx to George Moore, like that of 28 March, dealt with the business of the firm holding a patent for engraving work; the partners were Paul Lafargue, Benjamin Le Moussu and George Moore. In late summer 1873, Lafargue withdrew from the firm and Marx took his place. The firm fell apart in the spring of 1874.
  2. ↑ for the territorial army, meaning here his relations in Paris
  3. ↑ Marx is referring to Carlo Cafiero's pamphlet Il Capitale di Carlo Marx, which was a popular exposition of the first volume of Capital. It appeared in Italian in Milan in 1879.
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 422.
  5. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'Preface to the Second Russian Edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party.'
  6. ↑ A reference to Liebknecht's speech in the Reichstag on 17 March 1879 on the introduction of the so-called local siege in Berlin and its environs. Liebknecht stated that the Social-Democratic Party would abide by the Anti-Socialist Law, being 'a party of reform in the strictest sense of the word'. His speech showed that some Social-Democratic leaders were undecided about the tactics to be adopted in the initial months following the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law.
  7. ↑ of the first volume of Capital, 3rd German edition
  8. ↑ The reference is to Mathilde Blind.