Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

L O N D O N

in Manchester, have observed with curious consistency in all matters concerning me and the two gendemen. It is therefore better, so as not to reduce our correspondence to a purely telegraphic one, for us both to omit all references to your friends and proteges there.166

When Engels replied in a conciliatory manner, Marx wrote:

You know that everyone has his momentary moods and nihil humani etc. Naturally I never meant 'conspiracy' and such nonsense. You are accustomed to some jealousy and basically what annoys me is only that we cannot be together, work together, laugh together, while the 'proteges' have you comfortably in their neighbourhood.167

A great crisis was necessary for Marx to put his feelings on paper. When his son was dying in 1855 he wrote to Engels: 'I cannot thank you enough for the friendship with which you work in my stead and the sympathy that you feel for the child.'168 And soon afterwards: 'In all the frightful sorrows that I have been through in these days the thought of you and your friendship has always strengthened me, together with the hope that we have still something purposeful to do in the world together.'169

Engels was also on close terms with the rest of the Marx family: he wrote from time to time to Jenny and sent cotton goods as presents, and as 'Uncle Engels' he was very popular with the children. On occasion, however, Marx did criticise Engels - particularly to Jenny. After Marx's death his daughters Laura and Eleanor removed and destroyed those parts of their parents' correspondence which contained passages that might have hurt Engels.170

IV. R E S U M E D E C O N O M I C S T U D I E S

Considering his family circumstances, it is surprising that Marx got any serious work done at all. His one secure refuge was the British Museum; at home he would write up and collate the information he got there. His working habits were no more regular than they had been in Brussels - to judge by the report of a Prussian government spy:

In private life he is an extremely disorderly, cynical human being, and a bad host. He leads a real gypsy existence. Washing, grooming and changing his linen are things he does rarely, and he is often drunk. Though he is often idle for days on end, he will work day and night with tireless endurance when he has a great deal of work to do. He has no fixed times for going to sleep and waking up. He often stays up all night, and then lies down fully clothed on the sofa at midday and

sleeps till evening, untroubled by the whole world coming and going through the room.171

Eleanor wrote that she had heard tell how, in the front room in Dean Street, 'the children would pile up the chairs behind him to represent a

coach to which he was harnessed as horse and would "whip him up" even as he sat at his desk writing'.172

In spite of all these impediments, Marx began to lay the foundation of his economic work and produce a considerable amount of high quality journalism. During 1850-51 Marx spent long periods in the British Museum, resuming the economic studies that he had been forced to neglect since his Paris days of 1844. In his articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung-Revue he had already analysed the historical and political conclusions to be drawn from the failure of the 1848 revolutions, the cyclical process of overproduction and consequent overspeculation of 1843-45, the financial panic of 1846-47, and the recovery in England and France during 1848-50. The result of the analyses of the 1848 revolutions was not to make Marx any less sanguine about the next outbreak but only the circumstances in which it would occur. During the early 1850s Marx did not differ from the other German refugees in London in his belief that a revolution was imminent. He oudined his views in December 1849 in a letter to Weydermeyer:

Another event on the Continent - as yet unperceived - is the approach of a tremendous industrial, productive and commercial crisis. If the Continent puts off its revolution until the outbreak of this crisis, England will perhaps be forced from the start to be a companion, albeit a reluctant one, of the revolutionary continent. An earlier outbreak of the revolution - if not motivated direcdy by Russian intervention - would in my opinion be a misfortune.17'

What Marx did become convinced of in late 1850 was that a commercial and financial crisis would be the inevitable precondition of any revolution. He was therefore constandy on the look-out for signs of this approaching crisis - and he found them in great number. Already in 1850 he had calculated that 'If the new cycle of industrial development that began in 1848 follows the same path as that of 1843-47, the crisis will break out in the year 1852';174 and he duly produced indications that this would be the case. In December 1851: 'According to what Engels tells me, the city merchants also share our view that the crisis, held back by all sorts of chance events . . . must erupt by next autumn at the latest.'175 In February 1852 he spoke of 'the ever more imminent crisis in trade whose first signs are already bursting forth on all sides'.176 A few weeks later: 'Through exceptional circumstances - California, Australia, commercial progress of

the British in the Punjab, Sind and other newly conquered parts of East India - it could be that the crisis is postponed until 1853. But then its outbreak will be frightful.'177 In September 1853: 'I think that the commercial crash, as in 1847, will begin early next year.'178 Marx expected this movement, like the last, to occur first in France 'where' (he was saying in October 1853) 'the catastrophe will still break out'.179 The Hyde Park demonstration of 1855 led him to think that the Crimean War might precipitate a crisis in England, where 'the situation is bubbling and boiling publicly'.180 He tended to be cautious as regards Germany, fearing that a revolt in the Rhineland might have to turn to foreign help and so appear unpatriotic. 'The whole thing', he wrote to Engels in the spring of 1856, 'will depend on the possibility of backing the proletarian revolution by some second edition of the Peasants' War.'181 His predictions in this field caused amusement to his friends: Wilhelm Wolff actually took bets on them. 'Only on the subject of commercial crises', wrote Liebknecht, ' . . . did he fall victim to the prophesying imp, and in consequence was subject to our hearty derision which made him grimly mad.'182

In one respect Marx was not unhappy to see the crisis forever receding before him: it would enable him to finish his magnum opus on economics. In August 1852 he wrote to Engels: 'the revolution could come sooner than we wish',18' and Engels agreed that the uneasy calm 'could last until 1854. I confess I wish to have time to slog away for another year.'184

Marx's first studies in the British Museum were concerned with the two problems of currency and rent, subjects to which he was led by his view that in France the chief beneficiary of the 1848 revolution had been the financial aristocracy and that in Britain the key to the future development lay in the struggle between the industrial bourgeoisie and the large landowners. Marx noted the accumulation of precious metals by the Bank of France and the consequent expansion of credit controlled by the Bank. As regards Britain he was concerned to refute Ricardo's theory that income from land necessarily declined unless there was an increase in the price of corn. He considered that this was demonstrably untrue in the case of Britain during the previous fifty years and that the progress of science and industry could reverse the natural tendencies that would lessen incomes.

During the whole of 1851 Marx read voraciously. In January he was studying books on precious metals, money and credit; in February, the economic writings of Hume and Locke, and more books on money; in March, Ricardo, Adam Smith and books on currencies; in April, Ricardo again and books on money; in May, Carey, Malthus, and principles of economics; in June, value, wealth and economics; in July, literature on the factory system and agricultural incomes; in August, population,

colonisation and the economics of the Roman world; in the autumn, books on banking, agronomy and technology. In all, Marx filled his notebooks with long passages from about eighty authors and read many more. This study was directed towards the completion of his work on economics. Already in January 1851 Engels was urging Marx to 'hurry up with the completion and publication of your Economics'.185 By April Marx wrote:

I am so far advanced that in five weeks I will be through with the whole economic shit. And that done, I will work over my Economics at home and throw myself into another science in the Museum. I am beginning to be tired of it. Basically, this science has made no further progress since A. Smith and D. Ricardo, however much has been done in individual and often very subtle researches.186

The book was eagerly awaited by Marx's friends. In May Lassalle wrote: 'I have heard that your Economics will at last see the light of day. . . . I am burning to contemplate on my desk the giant three-volume work of the Ricardo-turned-socialist and Hegel-turned economist.'187 Engels, however, who knew his friend well, declared that 'as long as you still have not read a book that you think important, you do not get down to writing'.188 In June, however, Marx was as sanguine as ever, writing to Weydemeyer: 'I am slogging away mostly from nine in the morning until seven in the evening. The stuff I am working on has so many damned ramifications that with every effort I shall not be able to finish for 6-8 weeks.'189 Although he realised that 'one must at some point break off forcibly',190 in July 1851 Proudhon's new book The General Idea of Revolution in the Nineteenth Century came into his hands and he immediately diverted his energies into criticising its contents. Despite its antiJacobinism, Proudhon's book appeared to Marx to deal only with the symptoms of capitalism and not with its essence.

However, by October Freiligrath and Pieper (who was travelling in Germany at the time) had interested the publisher Lowenthal in Marx's work. Marx's scheme comprised three volumes: 'A Critique of Economics', 'Socialism', and a 'History of Economic Thought'. Lowenthal wished to begin with the last volume and see how it sold. Engels urged Marx to accept this proposal, but to expand the History into two volumes:

After this would come the Socialists as the third volume - the fourth being the Critique - what would be left of it - and the famous Positive, what you 'really' want. . .. For people of sufficient intelligence, the indications in the first volumes - the Anti-Proudhon and the Manifesto - will suffice to put them on the right track. The mass of buyers and readers will lose any interest in the 'History' if the great mystery is already revealed in the first volume. They will say, like Hegel in the

Phenomenology: I have read the 'Preface' and that's where the general idea can be found.191

Advising Marx to make the book a long one by padding out the 'History', Engels told him bluntly: 'Show a little commercial sense this time.'192 In early December came Bonaparte's coup d'etat which made Engels anticipate difficulties with Lowenthal, and though Marx stayed in contact with the publisher until well into the following year, nothing came of the negotiations. Even Kinkel was eager to get a 'positive foundation' from Marx's 'Economics' and Lassalle proposed the founding of a company that would issue shares to finance the publication; but Marx doubted the success of the venture and anyway did not wish to make public his lack of resources. In January 1852 he wrote asking Weydemeyer to find him a publisher in America 'because of the failure in Germany'.193 By this time he had already abandoned work on his 'Economics'. He worked on his notebooks for a short period in the summer of 1852 and, as a last hope, submitted to the publisher Brockhaus the project of a book to be entitled Modern Economic Literature in England from 1830 to 1852. Brockhaus rejected it; and Marx, under the pressures of poverty, work for the Cologne Communist Trial and increasing journalistic commitments, abandoned his 'Economics' for several years.

V . J O U R N A L I S M

'The continual newspaper muck annoys me. It takes a lot of time, disperses my efforts and in the final analysis is nothing. However independent one wishes to be, one is still dependent on the paper and its public especially if, as I do, one receives cash payment. Purely scientific works

the New York Daily Tribune for a year. The invitation to write for the newspaper had come from its managing editor, Charles Dana. Dana had a strong and independent personality: brought up by uncles on the bankruptcy of his father and the death of his mother, he entered Harvard on his own merits, but was forced by lack of means to leave after a year. In 1841 he joined the colony at Brook Farm, which adopted Fourierism and became a 'phalanstery' while he was there, and was one of its most effective members. When the 'phalanstery' was destroyed by fire, Dana was engaged by Horace Greeley as editor of the New York Daily Tribune. The Tribune, founded in 1841, was an extraordinarily influential paper and the Weekly Tribune, composed of selections from the daily editions,

had a circulation of 200,000 throughout America. The policies advocated by the paper and inspired by Greeley were surprisingly radical: it gave much space to Fourierist ideas, favoured prohibition and protection (at least as a short-time measure) and opposed the death penalty and slavery. This rather curious mixture of causes often aroused Marx's contempt:

The Tribune is of course trumpeting Carey's book with all its might. Both indeed have this in common, that under the guise of Sismondian philanthropic socialistic anti-industrialism they represent the Protectionists, i.e., the industrial bourgeoisie of America. This also explains the secret of why the Tribune in spite of all its 'isms' and socialistic humbug can be the 'leading journal' in the United States.195

Dana had met Marx in Cologne in 1848 and been very impressed. In August 1851 he asked Marx to become one of the Tribune's eighteen foreign correspondents and write a series of articles on contemporary events in Germany. Marx, who was still thinking of finishing his 'Economics' and could not yet write good English, wrote to Engels in the same letter that told him of the Tribune's offer: 'If you can manage to let me have an article on the German situation written in English by Friday morning, that would be a great beginning.'196 A week later he wrote: 'In the matter of the New York Tribune, you must help me now as I have my hands full with my "Economics". Write a series of articles on Germany, from 1848 onwards. Witty and straightforward. The gentlemen in the foreign department are very outspoken.'197 Engels complied and the first article appeared in the Tribune in October. In all, eighteen articles (all by Engels) were published and were a great success. 'It may perhaps give you pleasure to know that [your articles] are read with satisfaction by a considerable number of persons, and are widely reproduced.'198 The secret of the authorship was very well kept and for years the articles were reprinted, under the title Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany, with Marx as their author.199

In April 1852 Dana asked Marx to write regularly for the Tribune on English affairs. Marx wrote in German and sent the manuscript to Engels to be translated. In January 1853, however, he wrote to Engels: 'For the first time I've risked writing an article for Dana in English.'200 During the same year, as relations with Russia became tense, Marx enlarged his subject-matter and was soon writing about all aspects of world politics. His articles were highly appreciated and in January 1853 his fee was increased to £2 per article. A contemporary writer described Dana as regularly 'plunged in the reading of "Karl Marx" or "An American in Paris" '. At the beginning of 1854 Marx received through Dana an offer from an American magazine for articles on the history of German philo-

sophy from Kant onwards. The articles were to be 'sarcastic and amusing' and yet to contain 'nothing which would hurt the religious feelings of

the country'.201 Marx wrote to Engels that if they were together it might be possible but 'alone I would not wish it',202 and the matter was not

pursued. In the same year, relations between Marx and the Tribune became strained: Dana often altered Marx's articles and sometimes took the first paragraphs of an article to serve as an editorial, printing the rest as a separate and anonymous article. In all, 165 of the Tribune's editorials were taken from Marx's articles, though in fact Dana preferred the articles that (unknown to him) had been written by Engels. Marx insisted that either all or none of the articles should be signed and after 1855 they were all printed anonymously. During 1853 the Tribune printed eighty of Marx's articles and about the same number in 1854, but only forty in 1855 and twenty-four in 1856. At the beginning of 1857, Marx threatened to write for another paper since the Tribune, whose panslavist tendencies were becoming more pronounced, was printing so few of his articles: Dana thereupon agreed to pay him for one article a week, whether printed or not.

In April 1857 Dana invited Marx to contribute to the New American Cyclopaedia. The Cyclopaedia was the idea of George Ripley, a friend of Dana's since Brook Farm and literary editor of the Tribune. It eventually comprised sixteen volumes, had more than 300 contributors and was a tremendous success. A strict objectivity was aimed at, and Dana wrote to Marx that his articles should not give evidence of any partiality, either on political, religious or philosophical questions. Although Engels saw in I )ana's proposition 'the opportunity we have been waiting for for so long to get your head above water'203 and constructed schemes for getting a number of collaborators together, this proved impossible. Marx was asked to do articles mainly on military history and was severely handicapped when Engels fell ill with glandular trouble. He could give no plausible explanation for the embarrassing delays and was reduced to pretending that the articles had been lost in the post. Most of his contributions were written in 1857-58, but he continued to send a few until the end of i860. At two dollars a page it was a useful source of income. The reason for the end of Marx's collaboration is not known. In all, sixty-seven MarxEngels articles were published in the Cyclopaedia, fifty-one of them written by Engels, though Marx did a certain amount of research for them in the liritish Museum.

By the end of 1857 the commercial crisis had compelled the Tribune to dismiss all its foreign correspondents apart from Marx and one other; and in 1861 Greeley, disturbed by Marx's views, asked Dana to sack him also. Dana refused, but the publication of further articles by him was

K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y

suspended for several months. A few were published at the end of 1861 and the beginning of 1862, but in March 1862 Dana wrote to Marx that the Civil War had come to occupy all the space in the newspaper and asked him to send no more articles. In all the Tribune published 487 articles from Marx, 350 written by him, 125 written by Engels (mostly on military matters) and twelve written in collaboration.

Marx's articles were not merely a means of earning his living: in spite of his low opinion of his own work, he consistendy produced highly talented pieces of journalism and was, in the words of the Tribune's editor, 'not only one of the most highly valued, but one of the best-paid contributors attached to the journal'.204 Marx was far removed from the conventional sources of news and so made much more use of official reports, statistics, and so on, than the majority of journalists. In addition he managed to tie a large number of his articles in with his 'serious' research, which gave them added depth. Some of his press articles on India, for example, were incorporated almost verbatim into Capital. Considering the strong views he held, his articles were remarkably detached and objective. In many areas - opposition to reactionary European governments, for example - he saw eye to eye with the Tribune and could express himself forcefully, but where there was a divergence he contented himself with the straight facts.205

Although Marx started writing exclusively on England (about which he was exceptionally well informed), by 1853 he was dealing with Europe too, where the dominant topic was the approach of the Crimean War. Here he was concerned broadly to defend the values of Western European civilisation, as expressed in the 'bourgeois' revolutionary movements of 1789 and later, against the 'asiatic barbarism' of Russia. His almost pathological hatred of Russia led him to his bizarre view of Palmerston as a tool of Russian diplomacy and prompted an 'exposure', in a series of articles, of Palmerstonian duplicity.206 Some of these articles were written for the Free Press, run by David Urquhart, a romantic conservative politician whose Russophobe views Marx characterised as 'subjectively reactionary' but 'objectively revolutionary'.207 In writing for the Press, Marx was particularly anxious to combat Herzen's faith in the socialist vocation of Russia and the writings of his old friend and colleague Bruno Bauer who saw Russian absolutism as the rebirth of Roman statecraft, the incarnation of a living religious principle as opposed to the hollow democracies of the West. This was the one point on which Dana was critical of Marx, considering his attitude to France and Russia as exhibiting 'too German a tone of feeling for an American newspaper'.208

Marx also devoted a considerable number of articles to the Far East and particularly India. In general he regarded the phenomenon of col-

146 54

22.MEW VII 312

23.Cf. W. Schieder, 'Der Bund der Kommunisten im Sommer 1850', International Review of Social History (1968).

24.N. Plotkin, 'Les Alliances des Blanquists dans la Proscription', Revue des Revolutions Contemporaries, ixv (1951) 120.

25.Ibid.

26.MEW VII 550.

27.K. Bittel, Karl Marx. Neue Rheinische Zeitung - Politisch-Oekonomisch Revue

(Berlin, 1955) p. 16.

28.Ibid.

29.Jenny Marx to Weydemeyer, Reminiscences, pp. 236 ff.

30.MEW VII 5.

31. Ibid.

32.MESW 1 118.

33.Ibid., 139.

34.For a thorough evaluation of Marx's account in terms of the socio-economic background see R. Price, The French Second Republic (London, 1972).

35.MESW 1 163.

36.Ibid., 174.

37.Ibid., 222 f.

38.Ibid., 227.

39.ME W VII 218

40.Ibid., 220.

43.MEW viii 221.

44.Ibid.

45.Ibid., 222.

46.Ibid., 294.

47.Ibid.

48.Ibid., 295.

49.MESW 1 120.

50.MEW VII 421.

51. Ibid., 431.

52.Ibid., 440.

53.MESW 1 231.

54.Ibid., 244.