Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

woman had to face the music although it was no fault of hers in as much as women are accustomed to demand the impossible. Naturally she had no idea of what I wrote but her own reflexion could have told her what the outcome would be. Women are funny creatures - even those endowed with much intelligence.14''

The children were also a cause of much concern to Marx and Jenny. In i860, the year of Jenny's smallpox, the three girls were aged sixteen, fifteen and four years old. Jenny found their poverty all the harder to bear as 'the sweet girls, now blooming so lovelily, have to suffer it as well'.150 At the beginning of 1863 Jenny gave the following description of her daughters to one of her friends:

Even if the word 'beautiful' is not fitting for them, I must still say, even at the risk of being laughed at for my maternal pride, that all three of them look very neat and interesting. Jennychen is strikingly dark in hair, eyes and complexion and, with her childishly rosy cheeks and deep, sweet eyes, has a very attractive appearance. Laura, who is in everything a few degrees lighter and clearer, is in fact prettier than the eldest sister as her features are more regular and her green eyes under her dark brows and long lashes shine with a continual fire of joy.. . . We have made every effort we could towards their education. Unfortunately we could not do so much for them in music as we would have hoped, and their musical accomplishments are not distinguished, although they both have particularly pleasant voices and sing with a very pretty expressiveness. But Jenny's real strong point is elocution; and because the child has a very beautiful voice, low and sweet, and from childhood had studied Shakespeare with fanaticism, she would in fact long ago have been on the stage had not regard for the family etc. held her back.. .. Neither would we have placed any obstacle in her way if her health were sounder. . . . The third one, the baby, is a true bundle of sweetness, charm and childish frenzy. She is the light and life of the house. All three children are attached body and soul to London and have become fully English in customs, manners, tastes, needs and habits, - and nothing frightens them more than the thought of having to exchange England for Germany.... and I myself would find the prospect frightening.. .. Above all London is so colossal that one can disappear into nothing... .151

But things were not always so sunny. Marx had to ask Engels urgently to spend some days with them as 'it is absolutely necessary that my daughters see a "man" again in the house. The poor children have been shaken too early by the bourgeois shit.'152 Jenny's health was particularly bad as she suffered continually from chest ailments. This, too, Marx considered was attributable to their poverty: 'Jenny is now old enough to

In the summer of 1861, with the Vogt affair at last behind him, Marx began to work in earnest on the '3rd chapter' on Capital in General. For a year progress was very slow, though Marx considered that he had managed to popularise his style. By April 1862 he felt in a position to tell Lassalle that his book would not be ready for two months and added revealingly: 'I have the peculiar characteristic that when I see something that I have written out four weeks later, I find it unsatisfactory and re-work the whole thing. In any case the work doesn't lose anything thereby.'154

Two months later he was 'working like the devil',155 not on the third chapter, but on the history of economic theory - and particularly theories of surplus-value - that he wished to add to the chapter on Capital just as he had added a historical account of theories of money and circulation to the Critique of Political Economy. He was padding his work out as 'the German wretches measure the value of a book by its cubic content'.156 It was Marx's usual practice when domestic worries disturbed his concentration - and 1862 and 1863 were among the most troubled years of Marx's life - to turn to the historical part of his work. By the end of the summer he was getting depressed and expressed the wish to Engels to engage in some line of business: 'Grey, dear friend, is all theory and only business is green. Unfortunately, I have come too late to this insight.'157

He reread Engels' Condition of the Working Classes in England and was filled with nostalgia for the past: 'How freshly, passionately and boldly is the matter dealt with here, without learned and scientific considerations! And even the illusion that tomorrow or the day after history will bring to light the result gives the whole a warmth and lively humour, compared with which the later "grey in grey" is damned unpleasant.'158 A few years later he told one of his daughters that he felt himself to be 'a machine condemned to devour books and then throw them, in a changed form, on the dunghill of history'.159 By the end of 1862 he told Kugelmann that 'the second part is now at last finished', though with the inevitable qualification that this was 'apart from the copying out and final polishing for the printer'. It would contain, he continued, 'only what was intended

as the third chapter of the first part, i.e. "Capital in General" It is

(together with the first bit) the quintessence, and the development of what follows would be easy to complete, even by others, on the basis

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of what exists - with the exception perhaps of the relationship of different forms of the state to the different economic structures of society.'160 But illness prevented any creative work for three months during the spring of 1863 and Marx concentrated on trying to give the historical part its final shape. He was, however, still confident that he could 'copy out' the remainder very quickly.161 The possibility of competition from Lassalle spurred him on and by the summer he was regularly working ten hours a day and doing differential calculus in his spare time. In mid-August he reported to Engels that he was working on the manuscript for the printers which would be '100% easier to understand' than the Critique of Political Economy. He added that the ease with which Lassalle produced his works on economics made him laugh 'when I look at my colossal work and see how I have had to shift everything round and even construct the historical part from material that was in part totally unknown'.162

A certain number of the manuscripts from this period have either been lost or are inaccessible, so it is not possible to determine exactly how far Marx had got with with his '2nd part'. The main manuscript to have survived - from what Marx in 1837-58 conceived of as simply a third chapter - would amount to about 3000 printed pages and comprises the 'historical stuff that Marx in the summer of 1863 seems to have decided to incorporate into volume one as 'the Germans only have faith in fat books'.165 Some of this contained material later incorporated into the three volumes of Capital, but the major part was the historical section later published by Kautsky as the fourth volume of Capital under the title

Theories of Surplus Value.

The Theories of Surplus Value comprises three large printed volumes of which a large part is simply extracts from previous theorists.164 Marx began with Stewart and the economists of the mercantile system who tried to explain the origin of surplus-value simply from circulation. He then went on to the physiocrats who concentrated - rightly in Marx's view - on the sphere of production, albeit mainly agricultural production. Most of the first volume was taken up with extracts from Adam Smith and an attempt to separate scientific from ideological elements in his theories, particularly focusing on his distinction between productive and unproductive labour. The second volume dealt mainly with Ricardo, who was blamed for reliance on certain faulty premisses taken over from Adam Smith. The discussion centred mainly round Ricardo's theories of profit and rent and particularly his confusion of surplus-value with profit. The third volume dealt with the Ricardian School and particularly the English socialists whom Marx called 'the proletarian opposition based on Ricardo'.165 He also attacked Malthus as 'a shameless sycophant of the ruling classes'166 for advocating extravagant expenditure by them as a

remedy for over-production. Marx regarded Ricardo as the high point of bourgeois economic theory. Thereafter, as the class struggle sharpened, 'in place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize-fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and evil intent of apologetic'.167 Those who tried to harmonise the principles of capitalism with the interests of the proletariat merely produced 'a shallow syncretism of which John Stuart Mill is the best representative'.168 The English socialists, Ravenstone, Hodgskin and others, at least had the merit of drawing from Ricardo's labour theory of value the correct notion of capitalist exploitation. But they lacked the requisite theoretical insights to accomplish the necessary total reconstruction of his system.

The Theories of Surplus Value show how firmly Marx's ideas are situated in the tradition of classical economics.169 As in other fields, Marx evolved his own ideas by a critique and elaboration of his predecessors. The volumes also contain a number of digressions such as one on alienation170 and another on the growth of the middle class where he reproaches Ricardo with forgetting to emphasise 'the constantly growing number of the middle classes, those who stand between the workman on the one hand and the capitalist and landlord on the other'.171

From the summer of 1863 to the summer of 1865 there is a virtually complete silence in Marx's correspondence concerning his economic work. According to Engels, he spent 1864 and 1865 in drafting out Volume 3 of Capital. At the beginning of 1864 the finances improved but another obstacle immediately arose: carbuncles. When Marx began sending off the final manuscript of Capital to the publisher, he wrote to Engels: 'It is now three years since the first carbuncle was operated on. Since that time the thing has only let up in short intervals and, of all types of work, the purely theoretical is the most unsuitable when you have this devilish mess in your body."72 The boils started very suddenly in the autumn of 1863 and almost proved fatal. 'On 10 November,' wrote Jenny, 'a terrible abscess was opened and he was in danger for a fairly long time afterwards. The disease lasted a good four weeks and caused severe physical sufferings. These were accompanied by rankling moral tortures of all kinds.'173 Jenny was ushered from the room for the operation during which Lenchen held Marx down and the doctor, Allen, wondered at the stoicism of German philosophers. The boils, however, continually reappeared; they usually started in the autumn and came to full bloom (so to speak) in January. There were times when Marx's body was so covered with them that he could only stand upright or lie on his side on the sofa. He took lots of advice, seldom followed it very long, and after some years claimed to know more about boils than any doctor; certainly he pursued widespread researches in the British Museum on the subject. At various times he

took such extraordinary medicines as creosote, opium and arsenic (this for years on end), gave up smoking for months and took daily cold baths. He wished that the boils had been given to a good Christian who would have been able to turn his suffering to some account; but at the same time he comforted himself with the idea that the bourgeoisie would have good cause to remember his sufferings from this 'truly proletarian disease'.174 On extreme occasions he would even operate on himself. 'Today', he wrote to Engels, 'I took a sharp razor (a relic of dear Lupus) and cut the wretch in my own person.' He was proud to think that 'I am one of the best subjects to be operated upon. I always recognise what is necessary.'175 When the boils approached his penis he lightened the occasion by copying out and sending to Engels specimens of sixteenthcentury French pornographic verse - a field in which he considered himself 'well-read'.176 He found his only relief in occasional visits to the seaside. In March 1866, for instance, he spent four weeks convalescing in Margate where he was glad to find so little company that he felt he could sing with the miller of the Dee: 'I care for nobody and nobody cares for me."77 One day he walked the seventeen miles to Canterbury, 'an old, ugly mediaeval sort of town, not mended by large modern English barracks at the one end and a dismal dry Railway Station at the other end of the oldish thing. There is no trace of poetry about i t . . . . Happily I was too tired, and it was too late, to look out for the celebrated cathedral."78

In March 1865 Marx had signed a contract with the Hamburg publishers Meissner and Behre. Meissner's was a medium-sized publishing house, one of the few in Germany with democratic leanings, dealing mainly in school textbooks and works on history and medicine. This contract, which had been negotiated through Wilhelm Strohn, a former member of the Communist League who often visited Hamburg on business from England, gave May 1865 as the limit for the delivery of the manuscript, though this had to be amended in a later version. The terms of the agreement were not particularly advantageous to Marx and he remarked to his future son-in-law Lafargue that'Capital will not even pay lor the cigars I smoked writing it'.179 By July 1865, in spite of illness and work for the incipient International, Marx was able to write to Engels that

there are still three chapters to write to complete the theoretical part (rhe first three books). Then there is still the fourth book to write - the historico-literary one. This is relatively the easiest for me as all the problems are solved in the first three books and thus this last one is more of a repetition in historical form. But I cannot make up my mind to send anything off until I have the whole thing in front of me. Whatever shortcomings they may have, my writings do have this

advantage that they are an artistic whole and that is only attainable

through my habit of not letting them be printed until they lie before me complete.180

Marx was in a particular hurry to finish as 'the thing weighs on me like a mountain'; also his friends - Liebknecht, for example - were spreading oversimplified versions of his ideas; and, as ever, Marx was haunted by the idea of not being able to complete his work before a revolutionary outbreak.181

In February 1866, being seriously ill and under pressure from Engels, Marx at last agreed to complete volume one before drafting out the others. 'If I had enough money, that is more > - 0 , for my family and if my book were ready, it would be a matter of complete indifference to me whether I was thrown on the scrap heap today or tomorrow.' And he continued with the following report on his progress:

As far as this 'damned' book goes, this is the situation: it was ready at the end of December. The discussion of ground rent alone is, in its present form, almost book length. I went to the museum in the day and wrote at night. I had to work through the new agricultural chemistry in Germany, especially Leibig and Schonbein, who are more important for this thing than all the economists put together and also the enormous material that the French have given us since I was last occupied

the child smooth after so many birth pangs. But then once again the carbuncle broke it off. .. .182

By November 1866 he was able to send off the first batch of manuscript and the following April the whole was at last completed. Marx insisted on going to Germany himself with the manuscript and tactfully informed Engels of his clothes and watch that needed to be redeemed from the pawnshop before his trip. Engels sent by return the halves of seven £5 notes: the other halves, as was their usual practice, followed when Marx telegraphed the safe arrival of the first batch. Marx sailed for Hamburg in mid-April, proved to be one of the few passengers who kept upright in the storm, and deposited his manuscript in Meissner's safe. Since there was a possibility of printing the manuscript immediately (the printing was eventually done by Wigand who had published so much Young Hegelian material in the 1840s), Marx decided to stay on in Germany and went to Hanover at the invitation of Dr Kugelmann, a former member of the Communist League and now a much respected gynaecologist, with whom Marx had been in correspondence since 1862. Marx described him as 'a

fanatical adherent of our doctrine and our two persons. He bores me sometimes with his enthusiasm which is the opposite of his cold style in medical matters. But he understands, and he is upright, reckless, unselfish, and - what is most important - convinced.'183

While in Hanover, Marx was amused to be invited by a messenger from Bismarck to 'put his great talents to the service of the German people'.184 Two years previously Marx had received a similar invitation, transmitted via Lothar Bucher, to write financial articles for the Prussian Government's official journal. Marx subsequently published his correspon-

The crossing from Hamburg to London, was . . . in general fair. Some hours before London a German girl whom I had already noticed for her military stance, explained to me that she wanted to go on the same evening to Weston Supra Mare and did not know how to deal with her large amount of luggage. The situation was all the worse since on the sabbath helpful hands are few in England. I got the girl to show me the railway station that she had to go to in London; her friends had written it on a card. It was the North Western, which I too would have to pass by. So, as a good knight, I offered to drop the girl off there. Accepted. On thinking it over, however, it occurred to me that Weston Supra Mare was South West of London whereas the station that I would pass by and that the girl had written on her card was North West. I consulted the Sea Captain. Correct. The upshot was that she was to be set down in quite the other end of London from myself. Yet I had committed myself and had to put a good face on it. At two o'clock in the afternoon we arrived. I brought la donna errante to her station where I learnt that her train left only at eight in the evening. So I was in for it and had to kill six hours with mademoiselle walking in Hyde Park, sitting in ice-cream shops, and so on. It came out that she was called Elisabeth von Puttkamer, Bismarck's niece, with whom she had just spent some weeks in Berlin. She had the whole army list with her. . .. She was a spirited, cultured girl, but aristocratic and black and white to the tip of her nose. She was not a little astonished to learn that she had fallen into 'red' hands. I comforted her, however, with the assurance that our rendezvous would pass off without 'loss of blood' and saw her off safe and sound to the place of her destination. You can imagine what an uproar this would cause with Blind or other vulgar democrats - my conspiracy with Bismarck.""

Whether the meeting was really pure chance or a 'plant' is impossible to say.

The printing went slowly and, although Marx was able to correct the

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first proof sheet on 5 May, his forty-ninth birthday, he had to return to London in mid-May. It was a return that he feared: 'the debts there are important and the Manichees are waiting "insistently" for my return. Then there is the family moaning, the inner collisions, the rush, instead of being able to approach my work fresh and untroubled.'186 Throughout the summer Marx continued to be worried by his creditors and only had time to correct the proofs sheet sent to him by Meissner. He forwarded them regularly to Engels for his opinion. (It is interesting to note that Marx had not shown any of his drafts to Engels before they were sent to press.) Engels considered that some of the more abstract first part bore 'the trace of the carbuncle'.187 He also wished that Marx had introduced many more subtitles and had had his excursuses printed in a different type. Although the sharpness of the dialectical development was improved in Capital, Engels found the Critique of Political Economy easier to grasp.

Marx's letter to Engels on completing Capital, Volume One. The text reads:

2 Uhr Nacht, 16 Aug. 1867

Dear Fred,

Eben den letzten Bogen (49.) des Buchs fertig korrigiert. Der Anhang - Wertform kleingedruckt, urnfafit i'/4 Bogen.

Vorrede ditto gestern korrigiert zuriickgeschickt. Also dieser Band ist fertig. Blofi I)ir verdanke ich es, da(S dies moglich war! Ohne Deine Aufopferung fur mich konnte ich unmoglich die ungeheuren Arbeiten zu den 3 Banden machen. I embrace you, full of thanks!

Beiliegend 2 Bogen Reinabzug.

Die 15 £ mit bestem Dank erhalten. Salut, mein lieber, teurer Freund! Dein

K. Marx

Translation:

August 16, 1867, 2 o'clock in the night

Dear Fred,

I lave just finished correcting the last galley proof (49th) of the book. The appendix, on the form of value - is in small print and takes up i'/4 galleys.

'I"he Preface likewise was corrected and sent back yesterday. So this volume is finished. It is you alone that I have to thank for this being possible. Without your sell-sacrifice for me, I could never possibly have accomplished the enormous labour for the three volumes. I embrace you, full of thanks!

Enclosed are two corrected galley proofs. I got the £ 15. Many thanks.

(ireetings, my dear, beloved friend. Yours

K. Marx

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His opinion must have improved, for Marx wrote soon after that 'your

satisfaction up till now is more important to me than anything that the rest of the world may say of it'.188 By the end of August the last galley

was sent off and Marx wrote jubiliantly to Engels: 'To you alone I owe it that this was possible: Without your sacrifice for me I could not have got through the enormous labours of the three volumes. I embrace you, full of thanks!"89 In the third week of September 1867 Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1, Book 1: The Production Process of Capital appeared in an edition of 1000 copies.

Volume One of Capital is by no means the indigestible and virtually unreadable book that it has the reputation of being. It consists of two very distinct parts. The first nine chapters are, indeed, of an extremely abstract theoretical nature, whereas the reset of the book contains a description of the historical genesis of capitalism which is at times extremely vivid and readable.

The first nine chapters contain what Marx called in his 1857 Introduction 'the general abstract definitions which are more or less applicable to all forms of society'.190 It is not only this abstract method that makes these chapters difficult; there is also the Hegelian cast of the book. In his Afterword to the second German edition of the book Marx explained that he was employing the Hegelian dialectic of which he had discovered the 'rational kernel' inside the 'mystical shell' by 'turning it right side up again'.191 He even, as he said in the same Afterword, went as far as 'coquetting with modes of expression peculiar to Hegel'. A third factor which makes the beginning of Capital difficult is the fact that the concepts used by Marx are ones quite familiar to economists in the mid-nineteenth century but thereafter abandoned by the orthodox schools of economics. Since the third quarter of the nineteenth century, economists in Western Europe and America have tended to look at the capitalist system as given, construct models of it, assuming private property, profit and a more or less free market, and to discuss the functionings of this model, concentrating particularly on prices. This 'marginalist' school of economics has no concept of value apart from price. To Marx, this procedure seemed superficial for two reasons: firstly, he considered it superficial in a literal sense, in that it was only a description of phenomena lying on the surface of capitalist society without an analysis of the mode of production that gave rise to these phenomena. Secondly, this approach took the capitalist system for granted whereas Marx wished to analyse 'the birth, life and death of a given social organism and its replacement by another, superior order'.

In order to achieve these two aims, Marx took over the concepts of the 'classical' economists that were still the generally accepted tool