C O L O G N E |
2 0 I |
Marx in Germany. The two friends decided to split up: Marx would go to Paris while Engels put his talents as a bombardier at the service of the Baden revolutionaries. However, on their way back from Kaiserslautern to Bingen they were both arrested by Hessian troops who took them to Darmstadt and Frankfurt where they were eventually released. Marx returned to Bingen and left for Paris on 2 June accompanied by Ferdinand Wolff.
VI . PARIS A G A I N
Marx arrived in Paris, where he was to spend the next three months, confident of an imminent revolutionary outbreak. In reality, following the crushing victory of Louis Napoleon at the Presidential election the previous December, a military autocracy was imminent. Marx settled in the rue de Lille near Les Invalides under the pseudonym of M. Ramboz. He found Paris 'dismal' - as indeed it must inevitably have seemed compared to the previous year. In addition a cholera epidemic was raging far and wide. Marx was nevertheless confident of an immediate uprising and set about fulfilling his mandate. On 7 June he wrote to Engels: 'A colossal eruption of the revolutionary crater was never more imminent than now in Paris.... I am in touch with the whole of the revolutionary party and in a few days will have all the revolutionary journals at my disposition.'91 In fact, however, the situation was grim: the sporadic armed revolts in Germany were petering out, the Hungarian rebellion was crushed by Russian troops, and in Italy the French army was in the process of re-establishing papal authority. On 11 June, following a censure motion on the Government proposed by Ledru-Rollin and the radical Montagne, the workers' associations proposed an armed coup d'e'tat by night, but the Montagne refused; and when the latter held a peaceful demonstration themselves two days later, it was easily dispersed by government troops. Thus the two parties 'mutually paralysed and deceived each other'.92 The 'revolution' was finished.
At the beginning of July Jenny and the children had joined Marx in Paris to find themselves in a state of poverty that was to become chronic. Marx enlisted Weydemeyer's help to try and persuade a lady who had promised money for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung to give it to Marx personally so that he could purchase the copyright of the Poverty of Philosophy and make some money from a second edition. 'If help does not come from some quarter,' he wrote to Weydemeyer, 'I am lost ... the last
jewels of my wife have already gone to the pawnshop.'93 |
Marx also wrote |
to Lassalle, who responded promptly and generously, |
but he bitterly |
202 K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y
regretted his request when he learned from Freiligrath that Lassalle had made the affair the talk of the taverns. On 19 July, however, as Jenny wrote, 'the familiar police sergeant came again and informed us that "Karl Marx and his wife had to leave Paris within 24 hours" ,.94 Marx was given the alternative of moving to the Morbihan district of Brittany He described the area - rather ungenerously - as 'the pontine marshes of Brittany'95 and the whole proposition was 'a disguised attempt at murder'.96 He managed at least to obtain a delay by appealing to the Ministry of the Interior and writing to the Press that he had come to Paris with 'the general aim of adding to source-material for my work on the history of political economy that I began five years ago'.97 Marx still declared himself 'satisfied' with the political situation. 'Things progress well', he wrote, 'and the Waterloo that the official democratic party has experienced is to be treated as a victory.'98 He asked Weydemeyer to try to persuade Leske, despite the still outstanding debt, to publish his articles
on 'Wage-Labour and |
Capital'; he had already put out feelers to |
Berlin |
in the hope of establishing a monthly on economics and politics. |
On 17 |
|
August Marx wrote to |
Engels that the increasingly reactionary |
nature |
of the French Government gave hope for an immediate revolutionary insurrection: 'We must start a literary and commercial enterprise: I await your propositions.'99 A week later, he sailed for England.
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N O T E S |
1. |
Quoted in L. Somerhausen, LHumanisme agissant de Karl Marx (Paris, 1946) |
|
|
p. 245. |
|
2. ME W xxiv 676. |
||
3. |
The decisions |
of the meeting are printed in MEGA I vii 587 ff. There was |
|
nothing in the |
statutes allowing for the transfer of such discretionary power. |
4.Marx's account is not quite accurate here: according to the evidence of the concierge: 'the prisoner having requested a separate room, he was going to take her there when there was a violent knocking at the door and as he had several doors to open, he temporarily shut Madame Marx in the common room where in fact there were three prostitutes. There were two further
summons to the door and he only released Madame Marx when he had committed the prisoners which could have taken a maximum of a quarter of an hour. He found the prisoner very sad, tried to console her and in order to dispel her fears, offered to put her in a room with two beds, which he did in fact do. He immediately made up one bed for her; the other was occupied by a woman arrested for assault and battery' (quoted in L. Somerhausen, UHumanisme agissant de Karl Marx, p. 241). In order to justify his actions the
BRUSSELS |
H5 |
|
concierge pointed out that Jenny had given him a large tip on leaving. Jenny's own account (Reminiscences, pp. 223 ff.) is fairly imaginative. Born's version (Erinnerungen, pp. 83 ff.) outstrips even Jenny.
5.From the German version in MEW iv 537 f.
6.On the period in general, see S. Bernstein, 'Marx in Paris, 1848: A Neglected Chapter', Science and Society, vols. 3 and 4 (1938 and 1940).
7.S. Seiler, Das Complott vom 13 Juni 1849 oder der letzte Sieg der Bourgeoisie in Frankreich (Hamburg, 1850) p. 21.
H.See the Minutes of the Communist League meeting of 8 March reprinted in MEGA 1 vii 588 f.
9. See the translation in D. Struik (ed.), The Birth of the Communist Manifesto,
pp. 190 ff.
10.Apostelnstrasse, no. 7.
11. Cecilienstrasse, no. 7.
12.Gottschalk to Hess, in M. Hess, Briefwechsel, p. 174.
13. Quoted in E. Czobel, 'Zur Geschichte des Kommunistenbundes', Archiv fiir die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung (1925).
14.Cf. Gottschalk to Hess, in M. Hess, Briefwechsel, p. 177.
15.For figures as precise as can be obtained on the socio-economic situation in Cologne at this time, see H. Stein, Der Kolner Arbeiterverein 1848-49
(Cologne, 1921) pp. 9 ff.
16.Cf. F. Engels, 'Marx und die Neue Rheinische Zeitung 1848-1849', MEW, xxi 18; Gottschalk to Hess, in M. Hess, Briefwechsel, p. 176. On arrival Marx was also offered a post in the Press Bureau in Berlin by Claessen, a friend of Camphausen. See MEW xxx 510.
17.Cf. W. Blumenberg, 'Zur Geschichte des Bundes der Kommunisten', International Review of Social History (1964) p. 89.
18.Gottschalk to Hess, in M. Hess, Briefwechsel, p. 175.
19.Cf. 'Minutes of the Cologne Section, etc.' MEW v 484.
20.Born to Marx, 11 May 1848, reprinted in K. Marx, Enthiillungen tiber den Kommunistenprozess zu Kd'ln (Berlin, 1914) p. 19.
21.Published in W. Blumenberg, 'Zur Geschichte des Bundes der Kommunisten',
International Review of Social History (1964) p. 89. This is supported by Born,
Erinnerungen, p. 48. Roser's testimony has been discounted by Russian historians (particularly E. P. Kandel), who maintain that the Communist League was never dissolved. See further B. Nicolaievsky, 'Who is distorting history?'
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (April 1961) and Kandel's reply, 'Eine schlechte Verteidigung einer schlechten Sache', BeitrUge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (1963).
22.K. Marx, 'Herr Vogt', MEW xiv 439 f.
23.Ibid.
24.F. Engels, 'Marx und die Neue Rheinische Zeitung, MEW xxi 18.
2 0 4 |
K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
25.Engels to Marx, MEW xxvn 125.
26.F. Engels, 'Marx und die Neue Rheinische Zeitung', MEW xxi 19. According to Liebknecht, however, it was Engels who, in contradistinction to Marx, acted in a military fashion in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung office and caused many rows. Cf. Engels-Bebel Briefwechsel, ed. W. Blumenberg, p. xvii.
27.S. Born, Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1898) pp. 198 ff.
28.Cf. F. I. Carsten, The Origins of Prussia (Oxford, 1954).
29.F. Engels, 'Marx und die Neue Rheinische Zeitung', MEW xxi 19.
30. |
K. |
Marx, |
'The Crisis and the Counter-Revolution', ME W v 402. |
31. |
K. |
Marx, |
'Draft Law on the Abolition of Feudal Dues', MEW v 283. |
32.K Marx, 'Programme of the Radical-Democratic Party and the Left in Frankfiirt', MEW x 42.
33.F. Engels, 'Marx and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung', MEW xxi 18.
34.Quoted in S. Born, Erinnerungen, p. 102.
35.K. Marx, 'The June Revolution', MEW v 136 f.
36.The foreign policy of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung is fully discussed by F. Mehring in his Introduction to Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von K. Marx, F. Engels, F. Lassalle, 111 3 ff.
37.F. Engels, 'The Frankfurt Debate on Poland', MEW v 332 f.
38.F. Engels, 'The Danish-Prussian Armistice', ME W v 394.
39. Quoted in B. Nicolaievsky and O. Maenchen-Helfen, La Vie de Karl Marx, p. 198.
40. The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (London, 1909) 1 138 f. See the full quotation on pp. 417 ff. below.
41.A. Brisbane, A Mental Biography, ed. R. Brisbane (Boston, 1893) p. 273.
42.Cf. H. Meyer, 'Karl Marx und die Deutsche Revolution von 1848', Historische Zeitschrift, (December 1951).
43.Ibid.
44. Quoted in E. Priester, 'Karl Marx in Wien', Zeitschrift fiir Geschichtswissenschaft (I 953) P- 723-
45. Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 15 September 1848, in M E W v 493.
46.Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 19 September 1848, in MEW v 497.
47.K Marx, 'The Cologne Revolution', MEW v 421.
48.Minutes of the General Meeting, etc., MEW v 502.
49.K Marx, 'Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna' MEW v 457.
50.K Marx, 'The Counter-Revolution in Berlin', MEW vi 12.
51.Cf. MEW vi 33.
52.K Marx, 'Reply of Frederick William IV to the Deputation of the Civil Guard', MEW v 431 f.
53.Marx to Engels, MEW xxvii 128.
54.Ibid., 129.
55.Ibid.
C O L O G N E |
205 |
56.Ibid., 130.
57.Quoted in H. Gemkow, Karl Marx, p. 174, cf. also MEW vi 571.
58.Marx to Engels, MEW xxvii 131.
Sy. Minutes of the Committee Meeting, etc., MEW v 501.
60.K Marx, 'The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-Revolution', MEW vi 124.
61.K. Marx, 'The Revolutionary Movement', MEW vi 149 f.
62.Minutes of the Committee Meeting, etc., MEW vi 579.
63.F. Engels, 'The Hungarian Struggle', MEW vi 176.
64.This matter is investigated in extraordinary detail by R. Rosdolsky, 'Friedrich Engels und das Problem der "Geschichtslosen Volker" ', Archiv fiir Sozial-
geschichte, iv (1964). See also F. Mehring, Aus dem literarischen Nachlass, in 18 ff.; G. Mayer Friedrich Engels, 11 345 ff. Two of Engels' essays are translated in K. Marx and F. Engels, The Russian Menace to Europe, ed. Blackstock and Hoselitz (London, 1953) pp. 56 ff. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung also contained a fair amount of anti-semitism whose generally anti-capitalist tone it facilely considered to be of a progressive nature. Many of these articles (as also some of those in the vein of Engels' quoted above) came from Mtiller-Tellering (the paper's Vienna correspondent) whose contributions Marx considered to be 'the best we have had, absolutely in keeping with our line'. (Marx to MullerTellering, MEW xxvii 485).
65. K. Marx, Speech in his Defence, MEW vi 232. M. Ibid., 234.
67.Ibid., 245.
68.Ibid., 257.
69.Cf. Minutes of the Committee Meeting, etc., MEW vi 578.
70.Quoted in H. Stein, Der Kolner Arbeiterverein, p. 92.
71.K Marx, Montesquieu LVI, MEW vi 195.
72.Quoted in H. Stein, op. cit., p. 96.
73.See p. 179 above.
74.Evidence of P. Roser, in W. Blumenberg, 'Zur Geschichte des Kommunistenbundes', International Review of Social History (1964) p. 90.
75.Evidence of P. Roser, op. cit., pp. 90 ff.
76. Marx to Oberst Engels, ME W xxvii 496.
77.Engels, to Kautsky, MEW xxxvi 399.
78.F. Engels, 'Marx and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung', MEW xxi 23.
79.MEW vi 426.
80.See pp. 157 ff above.
H i. |
K. Marx, 'Wage Labour and Capital', MES W 1 79. |
|
|
82. |
On the achievements of workers' organisations in Germany during |
1848-9, |
|
|
see P. Noyes, Organization and Revolution passim. |
|
|
8). Quoted in |
H. Stein, op. cit., p. 99. |
|
|
H4. |
Reference |
for Marx's Hamburg activities in H. Meyer, 'Karl Marx |
und die |