T H E L A S T D E C A D E 4 I I
no longer and returned to London - only to depart once again for Ventnor, alone, at the end of October. He was feeling in slightly better health and sat drinking rum with Engels till one o'clock in the morning on the eve of his departure. On the Isle of Wight he spent long hours wandering over the downs. His increasing loneliness drove him to beg Laura to come and live with him. Only very occasionally now was the spark of the old fiery Marx rekindled - such as when he was suddenly
notified of the success of his |
theories in Russia; he commented excitedly: |
'I damage a power which, |
together with England, is the true bulwark |
of the old society.'144 Meanwhile in Argenteuil Jenny's condition was deteriorating. From as early as April she was continuously suffering severe pains from what seems to have been cancer of the bladder. She had four young children to look after in addition to a husband who only shouted at her and did nothing at all to help. Her mother-in-law blamed her for the debts of the Longuet household and continually urged her to go out to work. When the Lafargues came to see her in early January they found her 'sunk in a torpor broken by nightmares and fantastic dreams'. She soon became delirious and died on 11 January 1883, aged 38. It fell to Eleanor to inform her father. 'I have lived many a sad hour', she wrote, 'but none so bad as that. I felt that I was bringing my father his death sentence. I racked my brain all the long anxious way to find how I could break the news to him. But I did not need to, my face gave me away. Moor said at once "our Jennychen is dead".'1 45
Irredeemably shattered by the death of his 'first born, the daughter he loved most',146 Marx returned to London to die.
On his return to London, hoarseness as a result of laryngitis prevented Marx from speaking much. Lenchen cooked him the tastiest meals to try and restore his appetite and he was given constant mustard baths to warm his cold feet. He was drinking a pint of milk a day and got through a bottle of brandy in four. His reading alternated between publishers' catalogues when he was feeling low and French novels when his intellectual interest was aroused. An ulcer in the lung complicated his bronchitis. By the end of February he was confined to his room with a north-east wind bringing constant frost and snow. On 10 March Engels reported to Laura that the doctor considered Marx's health to be actually improving slightly and that all would be well if he could get through the next two months. On the morning of the thirteenth he had taken wine, milk and soup. But when Engels came on his daily visit early in the afternoon he found the scene he had so often feared:
The house was in tears, it seemed that the end had come. I asked for information, tried to get a realistic view of the situation and to offer
45 2 |
KARL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
comfort. There had been a small haemorrhage and a sudden deterioration had set in. Our good old Lenchen who cared for him as no mother ever did for her child, went up and then came down again: he was half-asleep, would I come with her? When we entered, he sat there sleeping, but never to wake any more. In two minutes he had quiedy and painlessly passed away.'47
Epitomising his contempt for bourgeois society and his internationalism, Marx died both intestate and stateless. His papers were sifted by his daughters and Engels, before being divided between the German Social-Democrats and the Moscow Communists. Marx was buried in Highgate Cemetery on 17 March 1883. His ill-kept grave remained in a far corner of the cemetery until 1956 when a large marble block surmounted by a cast-iron head was erected.
N O T E S
1.Cf. J. Verdes, 'Marx vu par la police fran5aise (1871-1883)', Cahiers de 1'ISEA (August, 1966) p. 110.
2.Marx to D. Nieuwenhuis, MEW xxxv 160. This was not always Marx's view: when the English socialist leader Hyndman remarked to him that he grew more tolerant as he grew older, Marx replied with a surprised: 'Do you? Do you?'
3.Cf. K. Kautsky, 'Hours with Karl Marx', The Modern Thinker (1933) p. 107.
4.Jenny Marx to Liebknecht, MEW xxxm 702.
5. Cf., for example, MEW xxxv 1 1, 31, 81, 98.
6.Cf. Engels-Lafargue Correspondence, 1, where almost every letter of this period is a begging one.
7.F. Harrison, Autobiographic Memoirs (London, 1911) 11 33 f.
8.Jenny Marx to Liebknecht, MEW XXXIII 703.
9.Jenny Marx to Kugelmann, in Andreas, Briefe, pp. 286, 291.
10. Cf. W. Liebknecht, in Reminiscences of Marx and Engels, p. 116.
11 . Eleanor has been well served by biographers. See C. Tzuzuki, The Life of Eleanor Marx (Oxford, 1967); Y. Kapp, Eleanor Marx, 1. The latter is full of well-researched information about the Marx family in general.
12.On Lissagaray, see Preface to Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (Paris, 1929).
13.Eleanor Marx to Jenny Marx, Bottigelli Collection, quoted in Tzuzuki, op. cit., p. 32.
14.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxm 84.
15.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxm 75.
16.Cf. Engels to Marx, MEW xxxm 78.
S E L E C T C R I T I C A L B I B L I O G R A P H Y |
383 |
17.Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman in England to qualify as a doctor.
18. Eleanor Marx to Marx, Bottigelli Collection, quoted in Tzuzuki, op. cit., P- 35-
19. Cf. Marx to Engels, MEW xxxm n o .
20.Cf. F. Kugelmann, in Remininscences, p. 285.
21.Eleanor Marx to Olive Schreiner, quoted in Havelock Ellis, 'Eleanor Marx', Adelphi (September 1935) pp. 348 ff.
22.H. M. Hyndman, Further Reminiscences (London, 1912) p. 139.
23.Quoted in L. Dornemann, Jenny Marx, p. 300.
24.The Nineteenth Century and After (January 1922), quoted in Y. Kapp, Eleanor Marx, p. 193.
25.Engels to Marx, MEW xxxv 5.
26.Jenny Marx to Mrs Kugelmann, MEW xxxm 695.
27.Quoted in A Uroyeva, For all Time and Men (Moscow, 1967). This book contains much detail about the publishing history of Capital.
28.Marx to Danielson, MEW XXXIII 311 .
29.Marx to Lachatre MEW xxxiv 434.
30.A. Philips to Marx, W. Blumenberg, 'Ein unbekanntes Kapitel aus Marx'
Leben', International Review of Social History, 1 (1956) p. i n . 31. Marx to Mathilda Betham-Edwards, MEW xxxiv 146.
32.Oeuvres, ed. M. Rubel, 1 546.
33.Engels to Kugelmann, MEW xxxiv 217.
34.Marx to Danielson, MEW xxxiv 358.
35.Marx to Danielson, MESC p. 315.
36.Ibid., p. 317.
37.F. Engels, Preface to Capital (Chicago, 1909) 11 10.
38.Ibid., 11.
39.Flngels to Bebel, MEW xxxvi 56.
40. On the circumstances giving |
rise to Dtihring's criticism of Marx, see pp. |
399 ff. above. |
|
41. Marx to Engels, MEW xxx |
131. |
42.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 578.
43.Marx to Engels, MESC, pp. 156 ff.
44.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 248.
45.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW XXXII 685 f.
46.See S. Avineri, 'From Hoax to Dogma: A footnote on Marx and Darwin', Encounter (March 1967). See also the exhaustive article by E. Lucas, 'Marx' and Engels' Auseinandersetzung mit Darwin', International Review of Social History (1964).
47.Cf. F. Engels, 'Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx', MESW 1 153 ff.
48.See further, E. Lucas, 'Die Rezeption Lewis H. Morgans durch Marx und
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K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
|
Engels', Saeculum (1964) and the excellent edition by L. Krader, The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx (Assen, 1972).
49.Cf. Engels to Kugelmann, MEW XXXIII 218 f.
50.Marx to Engels, ME W XXXIII 96.
51. Marx to Sorge, MEW XXXIII 634.
52. Marx to Engels, MEW XXXII 355.
53. Ibid., XXXIII 1 1 2 .
54.Public Record Office, quoted in R. Payne, Karl Marx, p. 460.
55.E. Kisch, Karl Marx in Karlsbad (Berlin, 1953) p. 20.
56.F. Kugelmann, in Reminiscences of Marx and Engels, p. 286.
57.Eleanor Marx, in Reminiscences, p. 126.
58.Marx to Engels, MEW XXXIII 113.
59.Ibid., 117.
60.Eleanor Marx to Jenny Longuet, Bottigelli Collection, quoted in Tzuzuki,
op. cit., p. 37.
61. F. Kugelmann, in Reminiscences, p. 286.
62.Possibly Karl Liebknecht, Marx's godson, who played a leading role in the abortive German revolution of 1919.
63.W. Bios, Denkwiirdigkeiten eines Sozial-demokraten (Munich, 1914) 1 163 f.
64.Engels to Bracke, MEW xxxiv 157.
65.Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiii 635.
66.Cf. F. Mehring, Karl Marx, pp. 507 ff.
67.Cf. Engels to Bebel, MEW xxxiv 125 ff.
68.Marx to Bracke, MEW xxxiv 137.
69.K. Marx, 'Critique of the Gotha Programme', MESW 11 25.
70.K. Marx, MESW 11 19.
71.Ibid., 22 f.
72.Ibid., 23.
73.Ibid.
74.Ibid., 24.
75.Ibid., 25.
76.Ibid., 27.
77.Ibid., 30.
78.A. Bebel, Aus Meinem Leben (Stuttgart, 1910) 11 138.
79.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxiv 48.
80.Marx to Sorge, M E S C p. 309.
81.Marx to Bracke, MEW xxxiv 305.
82.Marx to Sorge, MESC pp. 309 ff.
83.Quoted in R. Adamiak, 'Marx, Engels and Dtihring', Journal of the History of Ideas (1973). This is an admirably researched article on the background to the whole controversy.
84.Cf. M. Kovalevsky, in Reminiscences of Marx and Engels, p. 299.
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383 |
85.Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiv 413.
86.Marx and Engels to Bebel, etc., MESC, p. 325.
87.Ibid., p. 327.
88.Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiv 422.
89.See Engels-Bebel, Briefwechsel, ed. W. Blumenberg, p. xvii.
90.Marx to Engels, MEW xxv 31.
91.Marx to Jenny Longuet, MEW xxxv 178.
92.Marx to W. Freund, MEW xxxiv 245.
93.Jenny Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiv 525.
94.Marx to Liebknecht, MEW xxiv 317.
95.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxiv 48.
96.Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiv 296.
97.Marx to Liebknecht, MEW xxxiv 318.
98.On the concept of Populism, see R. Pipes, 'Narodnichestvo: A Semantic Inquiry', Slavic Review (September 1964). The fundamental work on Russian populism in F. Venturi, Roots of Revolution (London, i960).
99.K. Marx, Oeuvres, 11 (Paris, 1968) p. 1554.
100.K. Marx, 'Marginal Notes on Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy, MEW xvm 633.
roi. Marx to Jenny Longuet, MEW xxxv 179. There had been a serious earthquake in this region of Greece the previous week.
!02. Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiv 477.
103.V. Sassoulitch to Marx, in K. Marx, Oeuvres, 11 1556 f.
104.K. Marx, Oeuvres 11 1558.
105.K. Marx, op. cit., 11 1573.
106.K. Marx, MESW 1 24.
107.See, in general, A. Walicki, The Controversy over Capitalism (Oxford, 1969).
108.Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiv 476.
109.Ibid.
110.The questionnaire is reprinted in K. Marx, Oeuvres, 1 1527 ff. See also H. Weiss, 'Die Enquete Ouvriere von Karl Marx', Zeitschrift fiir Sozialforschung (1936); M. Rubel, Karl Marx, Essai de biographie lntellectuelle (Paris, 1957) pp. 416 ff.
111 . K. Marx, Oeuvres, 1 1527.
112.See in general, G. Lefranc, Le Mouvement Socialiste sous la Troisibne Republique
(Paris, 1963) pp. 33 ff.
113. Engels to Bernstein, MEW xxxv 388. Cf. a similar remark retailed by Liebknecht, quoted in K. Marx, Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 363.
114.Marx to Engels, ME W xxxv 110, see further, M. Dommanget, L'Introduction du Marxisme en France (Lausanne, 1969).
11 S • Marx to Engels, MEW xxxiv 39.
116. Cf. Ibid.