Материал: Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

necessary money; at least six other prospective publishers were approached; the manuscript was sent to Cologne and even split up into sections to be published separately. The authors continued their efforts up till the end of 1847, but only the short review of Griin was ever published. This failure was due to the strict censorship regulations and the serious financial risks incurred in publishing radical works, though Marx considered that the refusals were motivated by the publishers' opposition to his ideas.50 Thus, as Marx wrote later, 'we abandoned the manuscript to the gnawing of the mice all the more willingly as we had achieved our main purpose - self-clarification'.51 And, in fact, the manuscript as it survives does bear considerable traces of mice's teeth. Marx nevertheless continued to work frantically on his Economics and PoliticsHis publisher Leske had threatened to cancel the contract. Marx duly promised the first volume by the end of November. But he was distracted by his polemic with Proudhon. Leske accordingly cancelled the contract in February 1847 - though he was still trying to recover his advance in 1871!

II. W E I T L I N G A N D P R O U D H O N

With The German Ideology, Marx and Engels clarified their fundamental differences with the Young Hegelians and - more importantly - with contemporary German socialists. They now turned their attention to impress their newly acquired insights on the very varied existing left-wing groups, and 'to win over to our convictions the European proletariat in general and the German proletariat in particular'.53 Brussels was an ideal vantage point from which to build up contacts among German socialists, for it was in the middle of a triangle formed by Paris and London (where the largest colonies of expatriate German workers had congregated) and Cologne (capital of the Rhineland, the German province by far the most receptive to communist ideas). In Brussels a colony of gifted German exiles soon began to form around Marx. He had been accompanied on his journey from Paris by Heinrich Burgers, a young journalist who had contributed to the Rheinische Zeitung and become a communist in Paris. The morning after their arrival Marx insisted that they call on the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath who had been attacked by the Rheinische Zeitung for subservience to the Prussian Government which had none the less later exiled him for his radical writings.54 Their meeting was a cordial one in which Freiligrath found Marx 'an interesting fellow - agreeable and unpretentious'.55 Through Freiligrath and the German solicitor Karl Maynz, Marx met the leading Belgian democrats - in particular the lawyer I ucien Jottrand, and the leader of the Polish exiles Lelewel - and also

Philippe Gigot, a young Belgian palaeographist in the Ministry of the Interior."5 Among the Germans who were closely connected with Marx were Sebastian Seiler, a former Swiss contributor to the Rheinische Zeitung who ran a left-orientated news agency in Brussels; Karl Heinzen, a radical journalist then in the insurance business; Hermann Kriege, a journalist and disciple of Weitling; Wilhelm Wolff, who had arrived unheralded on the Marxes' doorstep in 1846 straight from Silesia where he had escaped from arrest for communist propaganda among the peasantry; and Georg Weerth, a representative for a German commercial firm who - though still in his early twenties - had already made a reputation as a poet. Jenny's unstable but likeable brother, Edgar, who had a temporary job in Seiler's agency, also formed part of the group. Marx was also visited by Stefan Born, a young typesetter who was to play a central role in the 1848 revolution.

After a brief stay in the Bois Sauvage guest house (for economy reasons, he told Weydemeyer"), the Marx family moved in October 1846 to Ixelles, a southern suburb of Brussels. Here, Marx's first son, the ill-fated Edgar was born. Marx's financial situation was becoming very difficult and he was forced to write begging letters to Herwegh and Annenkov. He managed to get a loan from Burgers in Cologne and also from his brother-in-law, but the situation only improved when in early 1848 his mother granted him a sizeable advance on his inheritance.58 Jenny was glad of the opportunities afforded by Brussels to extend her horizons beyond the household.

In Germany [she wrote to Marx at the beginning of their stay] a child is still a very great honour, the cooking pot and needle still bring respect and moreover one still has the satisfaction of a duty fulfilled in return for all the days spent washing, sewing and minding the children. But when these old things no longer count as duties and honours and so on, when people progress so far that they even consider such old expressions to be obsolete .. . from then on one feels no more impulse to the small duties of life. One wants to enjoy, become active and experience in oneself the happiness of mankind.59

In his memoirs written some fifty years later Stefan Born left the following account of his visit to Marx in late 1847:

I found him in a very simple - I might almost say poor - little dwelling in a suburb of Brussels. He received me in a friendly fashion, asking me about the success of my propaganda trip, and complimented me on my pamphlet against Heinzen; his wife joined him in this and gave me a friendly welcome.... I have seldom known so happy a marriage in which joy and suffering - the latter in most abundant measure - were shared and all sorrow overcome in the consciousness of full and mutual

dependency. Moreover I have seldom known a woman who in outward appearance as well as in spirit was so well balanced and so immediately captivating as Mrs Marx. She was fair-haired and the children (who were then still young) had their father's dark hair and eyes. Marx's mother, who lived in Trier, contributed to the expenses of the household, though the writer's pen no doubt had to find the greater part.. . -60

After his stay in Brussels Marx made very few close friendships; most of those he made or strengthened in Brussels remained so for life.

Even before The German Ideology was finished, Marx had started to establish a Communist Correspondence Committee in which Engels and Gigot were to take the most active part. This Committee was the embryo of all the subsequent Communist Internationals. It was designed as an instrument to harmonise and co-ordinate communist theory and practice in the European capitals. Marx described the aim as

providing both a discussion of scientific questions and a critical appraisal of popular writings and socialist propaganda that can be conducted in Germany by these means. But the main aim of our correspondence will be to put German socialists in touch with English and French socialists, to keep foreigners informed of the socialist movements that will develop in Germany and to inform the Germans in Germany of the progress of socialism in France and England. In this way differences of opinion will be brought to light and we shall obtain an exchange of ideas and impartial criticism.6'

This Correspondence Committee, and the subsequent Communist League which followed it, were Marx's first ventures into practical politics. The foundation of the Committee was to account for two controversies that raised questions central to the communist movement of that time. The first (with Weitling) carried into practical politics the polemic against 'true' socialism in The German Ideology, the second (with Proudhon) continued for the best part of the century - Proudhon's followers being particularly active in the First International.

Weitling was the illegitimate son of a French officer and a German laundry woman and earned his living as an itinerant tailor while absorbing the writings of the French socialists. His first book, Mankind as it is and as it ought to be, had been written in 1838 at the request of the League of the Just in Paris, and he had been very effective in his propaganda in Switzerland where his imprisonment had earned him the additional distinction of a martyr's halo. Thus he was widely welcomed on his arrival in London in 1844. During 1845, however, his preacher's style, the quasireligious terms in which he expounded his ideas, his demands for immediate revolution, his proposals for a dictatorship a la Babeuf, and the marked

psychological deterioration caused by his imprisonment: all these factors ended by alienating the majority of the London German communists who felt his approach to be impractical and unrealistic.62 On his way back to the Continent in early 1846 Weitling stopped in Brussels and the newly founded Correspondence Committee invited him to a discussion in Marx's house. Among those present were Engels, Gigot, Edgar von Westphalen, Weydemeyer, Seiler, a journalist Heilberg, and a visitor by special invitation, Paul Annenkov, a well-to-do Russian tourist whom Marx had known in Paris.6' Weitling struck him as 'a handsome fair-haired young man in a coat of elegant cut, a coquettishly trimmed small beard - someone more like a commercial traveller than the stern, embittered worker that I had expected to meet'. Annenkov continued:

We introduced ourselves to each other casually - with a touch of elaborate courtesy on Weitling's side, however - and took our places at the small green table. Marx sat at one end of it with a pencil in his hand and his leonine head bent over a sheet of paper, while Engels, his inseparable fellow-worker and comrade in propaganda, tall and erect and as dignified and serious as an Englishman, made the opening speech. He spoke of the necessity for people, who have devoted themselves to transforming labour, to explain their views to one another and agree on a single common doctrine that could be a banner for all their followers who lack the time and opportunity to study theory. Engels had not finished his speech when Marx raised his head, turned to Weitling and said: 'Tell us, Weitling, you who have made such a noise in Germany with your preaching: on what grounds do you justify your activity and what do you intend to base it on in the future?'

I remember quite well the form of the blunt question, because it was the beginning of a heated discussion, which, as we shall see, was very brief. Weitling apparently wanted to keep the conference within the bounds of common-place liberal talk. With a serious, somewhat worried face he started to explain that his aim was not to create new economic theories but to adopt those that were most appropriate, as experience in France had shown, to open the eyes of the workers to the horrors of their condition and all the injustices which it had become the motto of the rulers and societies to inflict on them, and to teach them never more to believe any promises of the latter, but to rely only upon themselves, and to organize in democratic and communist associations. He spoke for a long time, but - to my astonishment and in contrast to Engels - confusedly and not too well from the literary point of view, often repeating and correcting himself and arriving with difficulty at his conclusions, which either came too late or preceded his propositions. He now had quite different listeners from those who generally surrounded him at his work or read his newspaper and pamphlets on the contemporary economic system: he therefore lost his ease

of thought and speech. Weitling would probably have gone on talking had not Marx checked him with an angry frown and started his reply.

Marx's sarcastic speech boiled down to this: to rouse the population without giving them any firm, well-thought-out reasons for their activity would be simply to deceive them. The raising of fantastic hopes just spoken of, Marx continued, led only to the final ruin and not to the saving of the sufferers. To call to the workers without any strictly scientific ideas or constructive doctrine, especially in Germany, was equivalent to vain dishonest play at preaching which assumed on the one side an inspired prophet and on the other only gaping asses.. . . Weitling's pale cheeks coloured and he regained his liveliness and ease of speech. In a voice trembling with emotion he started trying to prove that a man who had rallied hundreds of people under the same banner in the name of justice, solidarity and mutual brotherly assistance could not be called completely vain and useless. Weitling consoled himself for the evening's attacks by remembering the hundreds of letters and declarations of gratitude that he had received from all parts of his native land and by the thought that his modest spadework was perhaps of greater weight for the common cause than criticism and armchair analysis of doctrines far from the world of the suffering and afflicted people.

On hearing these last words Marx finally lost control of himself and thumped so hard with his fist on the table that the lamp on it rung and shook. He jumped up saying: 'Ignorance never yet helped anybody!' We followed his example and left the table. The sitting ended, and as Marx paced up and down the room, extraordinarily irritated and angry, I hurriedly took leave of him and his interlocutors and went home, amazed at all I had seen and heard.64

T h e day after this discussion Weitling wrote to Hess that Marx had insisted on vetting party members; that for Marx the question of financial resources was all important (Weitling had the impression that Marx wished to exclude him from the Westphalian publishing project);65 there was to be no propaganda based on emotional appeals; and lastly 'there can be no talk at present of achieving communism; the bourgeoisie must first come to the helm'. Weitling continued: 'I see in Marx's head only a good encylopaedia, but no genius. He owes his influence to other people. Rich men back him in journalism, that's all.'66

This was not the end of all contact between Weitling and Marx; for the next few weeks Weitling continued to accept a midday meal from Marx.67 But Marx went on with his campaign by issuing a circular against I lermann Kriege, a young Westphalian journalist who had been a member of the Brussels group before going to London and finally emigrating to America where he published a weekly entitled VoIkstribun.6S Kriege's views were much more representative of 'true socialism' than Weitling's and