Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868
Source: MECW, Volume 32, p. 123;
First published: in Minuvshiye gody (Bygone Years), No. 1, St. Petersburg, 1908.
Dear Sir,
In reply to your esteemed letter, the following:
1. You must not wait for the second volume [of Capital], the publication of which will be delayed by perhaps another 5 months. I cannot finish it until certain official enquêtes, instituted during last year (and 1866) in France, the United States and England, have been completed or published. In any case, Volume I constitutes a whole, complete in itself.
2. Enclosed is my photogram.
3. Socialist literature does not exist in the United States. There are only workers’ papers.
4. I myself possess no collection of my works, which were written in various languages and published in various places. Most of them are out of print.
Since I am unable to meet your request in this respect — la plus belle fille de France ne peut donner que ce qu'elle a [the most beautiful girl in France can only give what she has] — I shall have to confine myself to giving you some brief notes on my literary-political activity, which you might be able to use in the preface to your translation.
Dr K. Marx, born 1818 in Trier (Rhenish Prussia).
1842-43: Redacteur en chef of the Rheinische Zeitung (Cologne). This newspaper is forcibly suppressed by the Prussian government. Marx goes to Paris; publishes there, together with Arnold Ruge, the Deutsch-Französische jahrbiicher (Paris, 1844). At the end of 1844, Marx is expelled from France by Guizot; proceeds to Brussels. Together with Friedrich Engels publishes Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik. Gegen Bruno Bauer und Consorten (Frankfurt am Main, 1845). (This work, like the essays by Marx in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, are directed against the ideological mysticism of Hegelian and, in general, speculative philosophy.) Also published during the stay in Brussels: Misère de la Philosophie. Réponse à la Philosophie de la misère de M. Proudhon (Brussels and Paris, 1847).
Discours sur le libre Échange (Brussels, 1848). Finally, at the beginning of 1848, together with Friedrich Engels: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (London).
Shortly after the outbreak of the February revolution, Marx is expelled from Belgium; receives at the same time from the French provisional government an invitation to return to France; proceeds to Paris and, in April 1848, to Cologne (Germany), publishing there:
Neue Rheinische Zeitung (from June 1848 to May 1849). Also there:
Zwei Politische Prozesse (Cologne, 1849). (Containing the trial proceedings and Marx’s defence speeches at the Assizes. Marx charged on one occasion with insulting the procureur du roi, and on the other, after the Prussian coup d'état (Manteuffel), with inciting rebellion. In both cases Marx acquitted by the jury.)
In the course of May 1849, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung is suppressed by the Prussian government and Marx expelled from Prussia. Proceeds once more to Paris. Again expelled from France; proceeds at the end of October 1849 to London, where he still resides. During his stay there, publishes:
Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-Oekonomische Revue (1850, Hamburg and New York).
Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte (New York, 1852).
Enthüllungen über den Kommunisten-Prozess zu Köln (1853, two editions, one in Basle, one in Boston, United States).
Pamphlets Against Lord Palmerston (London Birmingham, Glasgow, 1853-1854).
Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (Berlin 1859). Herr Vogt (London, 1860).
1851-1861, continuous contributions in English to the New-York Tribune, Putnam’s Revue and The New American Cyclopedia.
1864: The foundation programme of the ‘International Working Men’s Association’, that is: Address to the Working People of Europe and the Rules of the Association, later (1866) definitively sanctioned at the congress of the International Working Men’s Association at Geneva. Marx continuously, up to the present, Member of the General Council of the International Workingmen’s Association, and its Secretary for Germany.
1867: Das Kapital etc.
Yours faithfully,
Karl Marx