NOTE BY THE EDITOR
The
following articles are now, after forty-five years, for the first
time collected and printed in book form. They are an invaluable
pendant to Marx's work on the
coup d'état
of
Napoleon III. ("Der Achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte.")
Both works belong to the same period, and both are what Engels
calls
"excellent specimens of that marvellous gift ... of Marx ... of
apprehending clearly the character, the significance, and the
necessary consequences of great historical events at a time when
these events are actually in course of taking place, or are only
just
completed."
These
articles were written in 1851-1852, when Marx had been about
eighteen
months in England. He was living with his wife, three young
children,
and their life-long friend, Helene Demuth, in two rooms in Dean
Street, Soho, almost opposite the Royalty Theatre. For nearly ten
years they had been driven from pillar to post. When, in 1843, the
Prussian Government suppressed the
Rhenish Gazette
which Marx had edited, he went with his newly-married wife, Jenny
von
Westphalen, to Paris. Not long after, his expulsion was demanded by
the Prussian Government—it is said that Alexander von Humboldt
acted as the agent of Prussia on this occasion—and M. Guizot was,
of course, too polite to refuse the request. Marx was expelled, and
betook himself to Brussels. Again the Prussian Government requested
his expulsion, and where the French Government had complied it was
not likely the Belgian would refuse. Marx received marching
orders.
But
at this same time the French Government that had expelled Marx had
gone the way of French Governments, and the new Provisional
Government through Ferdinand Flocon invited the "brave et loyal
Marx" to return to the country whence "tyranny had banished
him, and where he, like all fighting in the sacred cause, the cause
of the fraternity of all peoples," would be welcome. The
invitation was accepted, and for some months he lived in Paris.
Then
he returned to Germany in order to start the
New Rhenish Gazette
in Cologne. And the
Rhenish Gazette
writers had very lively times. Marx was twice prosecuted, but as
the
juries would not convict, the Prussian Government took the nearer
way
and suppressed the paper.
Again
Marx and his family returned to the country whose "doors"
had only a few short months before been "thrown open" to
him. The sky had changed—and the Government. "We remained in
Paris," my mother says in some biographical notes I have found,
"a month. Here also there was to be no resting-place for us. One
fine morning the familiar figure of the sergeant of police appeared
with the announcement that Karl 'et sa dame' must leave Paris
within
twenty-four hours. We were graciously told we might be interned at
Vannes in the Morbihan. Of course we could not accept such an exile
as that, and I again gathered together my small belongings to seek
a
safe haven in London. Karl had hastened thither before us." The
"us" were my mother, Helene Demuth, and the three little
children, Jenny (Madame Longuet), Laura (Madame Lafargue), and
Edgar,
who died at the age of eight.
The
haven was safe indeed. But it was storm-tossed. Hundreds of
refugees—all more or less destitute—were now in London. There
followed years of horrible poverty, of bitter suffering—such
suffering as can only be known to the penniless stranger in a
strange
land. The misery would have been unendurable but for the faith that
was in these men and women, and but for their invincible "Humor."
I use the German word because I know no English one that quite
expresses the same thing—such a combination of humor and
good-humor, of light-hearted courage, and high spirits.
That
readers of these articles may have some idea of the conditions
under
which Marx was working, under which he wrote them and the
"Achtzehnte
Brumaire," and was preparing his first great economical work,
"Zur Kritik der Politischen Oeconomie" (published in 1859),
I again quote from my mother's notes. Soon after the arrival of the
family a second son was born. He died when about two years old.
Then
a fifth child, a little girl, was born. When about a year old, she
too fell sick and died. "Three days," writes my mother,
"the poor child wrestled with death. She suffered so.... Her
little dead body lay in the small back room; we all of us"
(i.e., my parents, Helene Demuth, and the three elder children)
"went
into the front room, and when night came we made us beds on the
floor, the three living children lying by us. And we wept for the
little angel resting near us, cold and dead. The death of the dear
child came in the time of our bitterest poverty. Our German friends
could not help us; Engels, after vainly trying to get literary work
in London, had been obliged to go, under very disadvantageous
conditions, into his father's firm, as a clerk, in Manchester;
Ernest
Jones, who often came to see us at this time, and had promised
help,
could do nothing.... In the anguish of my heart I went to a French
refugee who lived near, and who had sometimes visited us. I told
him
our sore need. At once with the friendliest kindness he gave me £2.
With that we paid for the little coffin in which the poor child now
sleeps peacefully. I had no cradle for her when she was born, and
even the last small resting-place was long denied her." ... "It
was a terrible time," Liebknecht writes to me (the Editor), "but
it was grand nevertheless."
In
that "front room" in Dean Street, the children playing
about him, Marx worked. I have heard tell how the children would
pile
up chairs behind him to represent a coach, to which he was
harnessed
as horse, and would "whip him up" even as he sat at his
desk writing.
Marx
had been recommended to Mr. C. A. Dana,
[1]
the managing director of the
New York Tribune
,
by Ferdinand Freiligrath, and the first contributions sent by him
to
America are the series of letters on Germany here reprinted. They
seem to have created such a sensation that before the series had
been
completed Marx was engaged as regular London correspondent. On the
12th of March, 1852, Mr. Dana wrote: "It may perhaps give you
pleasure to know that they" (i.e., the "Germany"
letters) "are read with satisfaction by a considerable number of
persons, and are widely reproduced." From this time on, with
short intervals, Marx not only sent letters regularly to the New
York
paper; he wrote a large number of leading articles for it. "Mr.
Marx," says an editorial note in 1853, "has indeed opinions
of his own, with some of which we are far from agreeing; but those
who do not read his letters neglect one of the most instructive
sources of information on the great questions of European
politics."
Not
the least remarkable among these contributions were those dealing
with Lord Palmerston and the Russian Government. "Urquhart's
writings on Russia," says Marx, "had interested but not
convinced me. In order to arrive at a definite opinion, I made a
minute analysis of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, and of the
Diplomatic Blue Books from 1807 to 1850. The first fruits of these
studies was a series of articles in the
New York Tribune
,
in which I proved Palmerston's relations with the Russian
Government.... Shortly after, these studies were reprinted in the
Chartist organ edited by Ernest Jones,
The People's Paper
....
Meantime the Glasgow
Sentinel
had
reproduced one of these articles, and part of it was issued in
pamphlet form by Mr. Tucker, London."
[2]
And the Sheffield Foreign Affairs Committee thanked Marx for the
"great public service rendered by the admirable
exposé
" in
his "Kars papers," published both in the
New York Tribune
and the
People's
Paper
. A large
number of articles on the subject were also printed in the
Free Press
by
Marx's old friend, C. D. Collett. I hope to republish these and
other
articles.
As
to the
New York
Tribune
, it was at
this time an admirably edited paper, with an immense staff of
distinguished contributors,
[3]
both American and European. It was a passionate anti-slavery organ,
and also recognized that there "was need for a true organization
of society," and that "our evils" were "social,
not political." The paper, and especially Marx's articles, were
frequently referred to in the House of Commons, notably by John
Bright.
It
may also interest readers to know what Marx was paid for his
articles—many of them considerably longer even than those here
collected. He received £1 for each contribution—not exactly
brilliant remuneration.
It
will be noted that the twentieth chapter, promised in the
nineteenth,
does not appear. It may have been written, but was certainly not
printed. It was probably crowded out. "I do not know,"
wrote Mr. Dana, "how long you intend to make the series, and
under ordinary circumstances I should desire to have it prolonged
as
much as possible. But we have a presidential election at hand,
which
will occupy our columns to a great extent.... Let me suggest to you
if possible to condense your survey ... into say half a dozen more
articles" (eleven had then been received by Mr. Dana). "Do
not, however, close it without an exposition of the forces now
remaining at work there (Germany) and active in the preparation of
the future." This "exposition" will be found in the
article which I have added to the "Germany" series, on the
"Cologne Communist Trial." That trial really gives a
complete picture of the conditions of Germany under the triumphant
Counter-Revolution.
Marx
himself nowhere says the series of letters is incomplete, although
he
occasionally refers to them. Thus in the letter on the Cologne
trial
he speaks of the articles, and in 1853 writes: "Those of your
readers who, having read my letters on the German Revolution and
Counter-Revolution written for the
Tribune
some two
years ago, desire to have an immediate intuition of it, will do
well
to inspect the picture by Mr. Hasenclever now being exhibited in
...
New York ... representing the presentation of a workingmen's
petition
to the magistrates of Düsseldorf in 1848. What the writer could
only
analyze, the eminent painter has reproduced in its dramatic
vitality."
Finally,
I would remind English readers that these articles were written
when
Marx had only been some eighteen months in England, and that he
never
had any opportunity of reading the proofs. Nevertheless, it has not
seemed to me that anything needed correction. I have therefore only
removed a few obvious printer's errors.
The
date at the head of each chapter refers to the issue of the
Tribune
in which
the article appeared, that at the end to the time of writing. I am
alone responsible for the headings of the letters as published in
this volume.
Eleanor
Marx Aveling.
Sydenham,
April, 1896.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]
Mr. C. A. Dana was at this time still in sympathy with Socialism.
The
effects of Brook Farm had not yet worn off.
[2]
"Herr Vogt," pp. 59 and 185. London, 1860.
[3]
Including Bruno Bauer, Bayard Taylor, Ripley, and many of the Brook
Farmers. The editor was Horace Greeley.