4 1 6 K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y
117. Marx to Liebknecht, MEW xxxiv 320. 118. Engels to Bernstein, MEW xxxiv 378.
119. Marx to Hyndman, in H. Hyndman, Record of an Adventurous Life, p. 283. See also MEW xxxiv 498.
120. Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxiv 296.
121. 'A Meeting with Karl Marx', Times Literary Supplement (15 July 1949) p. 464.
122.Ibid.
123.See C. Tzuzuki, Hyndman and British Socialism (Oxford, 1962).
124.H. M. Hyndman, Record of an Adventurous Life, pp. 269 ff.
125.Ibid., p. 271.
126.Ibid., p. 285.
127.Cf. Marx to Eleanor Marx, MEW xxxv 422. The correspondence is
reprinted, and farther details given, in E. Bottigelli, 'La Rupture MarxHyndman', Annali (i960) pp. 636 ff. Marx seems to have fallen out with J. S. Stuart-Glennie, another 'Tory' socialist, for the same reasons. See
C.Tzuzuki, The Life of Eleanor Marx, pp. 53 ff.
128.Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxv 248. See further, S. Pierson, Marxism and the origins of British Socialism (Ithaca and London, 1973), pp. 59 ff.
129.Marx to Eleanor Marx, MEW xxxv 422.
130.Marx to Danielson, MEW xxxv 154.
131. Marx to Jenny Marx, MEW xxxv 177.
132.Ibid., 186.
133.Eleanor Marx to Liebknecht, Reminiscences, p. 127.
134.Marx to Jenny Marx, MEW xxxv 241.
135.Ibid., 240.
136.Ibid.
137.Marx to Sorge, MEW xxxv 247.
138.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxv 35.
139.Marx to Jenny Marx, MEW xxxv 289.
140.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxv 46.
141. Ibid., 105.
142.Marx to Jenny Marx, MEW xxxv 330.
143.Cf. Engels-Lafargue Correspondence, 1 142.
144.Marx to Laura Marx, MEW xxxv 408.
145.Eleanor Marx to Liebknecht, Reminiscences, p. 128.
146.Ibid.
147.Engels to Sorge, MEW xxxv 460.
N I N E
Epilogue
Here, to conclude, are descriptions from seven people who knew Marx personally. T h e y are interesting both in their divergence and in the insight
that each |
presents. T h e y are followed |
by Marx's own account of himself |
as given |
in the Victorian parlour game |
of 'Confessions'. |
The Russian Aristocrat
Marx himself was the type of man who is made up of energy, will and unshakable conviction. He was most remarkable in his appearance. He had a shock of deep black hair and hairy hands and his coat was buttoned wrong; but he looked like a man with the right and power to demand respect, no matter how he appeared before you and no matter what he did. His movements were clumsy but confident and self-reliant, his ways defied the usual conventions in human relations, but they were dignified and somewhat disdainful; his sharp metallic voice was wonderfully adapted to the radical judgements that he passed on persons and things. He always spoke in imperative words that would brook no contradiction and were made all the sharper by the almost painful impression of the tone which ran through everything he said. This tone expressed the firm conviction of his mission to dominate men's minds and prescribe them their laws. Before me stood the embodiment of a democratic dictator such as one might imagine in a day dream.
P. Annenkov, 'Eine russische Stimme tiber Karl Marx', Die neue Zeit (1883)
The American Senator
He could not have been much more than thirty years old at that time, but he was already the recognised head of the advanced socialistic school. The somewhat thick-set man, with broad forehead, very black hair and beard and dark sparkling eyes, at once attracted general attention. He enjoyed the reputation of having acquired great learning.. .. Marx's utterances were indeed full of meaning, logical and clear, but I have never seen a man whose bearing was so provoking and intolerable. To no
45 2 K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y
opinion which differed from his own did he accord the honour of even condescending consideration. Everyone who contradicted him he treated with abject contempt; every argument that he did not like he treated either with biting scorn at the unfathomable ignorance that had prompted it, or with opprobrious aspersions on the motives of him who advanced it. I remember most distinctly the cutting disdain with which he pronounced the word bourgeois: and as a bourgeois - that is, as a detestable example of the deepest mental and moral degeneracy - he denounced everyone
who dared oppose his opinions.
The Reminiscences of Karl Schurz
(London, 1909) 1 138 f.
The Down-and-out Prussian Lieutenant
First we drank port, then claret which is red Bordeaux, then champagne. After the red wine Marx became completely drunk. That was exactly what I wanted, because he became at the same time much more open-hearted than he probably would have been otherwise. I found out the truth about certain things which would otherwise have remained mere suppositions. In spite of his drunkenness Marx dominated the conversation up to the last moment.
T h e impression he made on me was that of someone who possessed a rare intellectual superiority, and he was evidently a man of outstanding personality. If his heart had matched his intellect, and if he had possessed as much love as hate, I would have gone through fire for him, even though at the end he expressed his complete and candid contempt for me, and had previously indicated his contempt in passing. He was the first and only one among us all to whom I would entrust leadership, for he was a man who never lost himself in small matters when dealing with great events.
Yet it is a matter for regret in view of our aims that this man with his fine intellect is lacking in nobility of soul. I am convinced that a most dangerous personal ambition has eaten away all the good in him. He laughs at the fools who parrot his proletarian catechism, just as he laughs over the communists a la Willich and over the bourgeoise. T h e only people he respects are the aristocrats, the genuine ones, those who are well aware of their aristocracy. In order to prevent them from governing, he needs his own source of strength, which he can find only in the proletariat. Accordingly he has tailored his system to them. In spite of all his assurances to the contrary, personal domination was the aim of all his endeavours.
E[ngels] and all his old associates, in spite of their very real gifts, are
SELECT CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY |
419 |
all far behind and beneath him; and if they should dare to forget it for a moment, he puts them back in their place with a shameless impudence worthy of a Napoleon.
Techow to Schimmelpfennig, in K. Vogt Mein Prozess (Geneva, 1859) pp. 151 ff.
The Faithful Disciple
No one could be kinder and fairer than Marx in giving others their due. I le was too great to be envious, jealous or vain. But he had as deadly a hatred for the false greatness and pretended fame of swaggering incapacity and vulgarity as for any kind of deceit and pretence.
Of all the great, little or average men that I have known, Marx is one of the few who was free from vanity. He was too great and too strong to be vain, and too proud as well. He never struck an attitude, he was always himself. He was as incapable as a child of wearing a mask or pretending. As long as social or political grounds did not make it undesirable, he always spoke his mind completely and without any reserve and his face was the mirror of his heart. And when circumstances demanded restraint he showed a sort of childlike awkwardness that often amused his friends.
No man could be more truthful than Marx - he was truthfulness incarnate. Merely by looking at him you knew who it was you were dealing with. In our 'civilised' society with its perpetual state of war one cannot always tell the truth, that would be playing into the enemy's hands or risking being sent to Coventry. But even if it is often inadvisable to say the truth, it is not always necessary to say an untruth. I must not always say what I think or feel, but that does not mean that I must say
what I do not feel or think. |
T h e |
former is wisdom, the latter hypocrisy. |
Marx was never a hypocrite. |
He |
./as absolutely incapable of it, just like |
an unsophisticated child. His wife often called him 'my big baby', and nobody, not even Engels, knew or understood him better than she did. Indeed, when he was in what is generally termed society, where everything is judged by appearances and one must do violence to one's feelings, our 'Moor' was like a big boy and he could be embarrassed and blush like a child.
W. Liebknecht, Karl Marx. Biographical Memoirs
(Chicago, 1901) pp. 93 ff.
The Anarchist Opponent
We saw each other fairly often and I very much admired him for his knowledge and for his passionate and earnest devotion to the cause of die proletariat, although it always had in it an admixture of personal
418 |
K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
|
vanity; and I eagerly sought his conversation, which was instructive and witty so long as it was not inspired by petty spite - which, unfortunately, happened too often. But there was never real intimacy between us. Our temperaments did not harmonise. He called me a sentimental idealist; and he was right. I called him vain, treacherous and morose; and I too was right.
M. Bakunin, in M. Netdau, M. Bakounine, Esquisse biographique avec extraits de ses oeuvres, in fol. Bibl. Nationale (Paris, 1901) p. 71.
The Adoring Daughter
To those who knew Karl Marx no legend is funnier than the common one which pictures him a morose, bitter, unbending, unapproachable man, a sort of Jupiter Tonans, ever hurling thunder, never known to smile, sitting aloof and alone in Olympus. This picture of the cheeriest, gayest soul that ever breathed, of a man brimming over with humour and good-humour, whose hearty laugh was infectious and irresistible, of the kindliest, gentlest, most sympathetic of companions, is a standing wonder - and amusement - to those who knew him.
In his home life, as in his intercourse with friends, and even with mere acquaintances, I think one might say that Karl Marx's main characteristics were his unbounded good-humour and his unlimited sympathy His kindness and patience were really sublime. A less sweet-tempered man would have often been driven frantic by the constant interruptions, the continual demands made upon him by all sorts of p e o p l e . . . .
To those who are students of human nature, |
it will not seem strange |
that this man, who was such a fighter, should |
at the same time be the |
kindliest and gentlest of men. T h e y |
will understand |
that he could hate |
so fiercely only because he could love |
so profoundly; |
that if his trenchant |
pen could as surely imprison a soul in hell as Dante himself it was because he was so true and tender; that if his sarcastic humour could bite like a corrosive acid, that same humour could be as balm to those in trouble and afflicted.
Eleanor Marx, in Reminiscences of Marx and Engels
(Moscow, n.d.) pp. 205 ff.
The English Gentleman
T h e first impression of Marx as I saw him was that of a powerful, shaggy, untamed old man, ready, not to say eager, to enter into conflict and rather suspicious himself of immediate attack.
When speaking with fierce indignation of the policy of the Liberal