Karl Marx; his life and work
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17 6 KARL MARX ! Chester upon terms that were harsh and almost humiliating, and which made it impossible for him to be of much service to his friend, either financially or otherwise. At the end of September, 1850, Marx had resigned from the Central Committee of the Communist Alliance and, as already observed, secured the transfer of the governing body, the Cen tral Committee, to Cologne. A statement which he insisted upon issuing at that time, as part of its report, is of interest as showing his attitude toward the majority view, represented by Willich, Kinkel, Barthelmy, and others. He wrote: “ The majority has substituted the dogmatic spirit for the critical, the idealistic interpretation of events for the material istic. Simple will-power, instead of the true relations of things, has become the motive force of revolution. While we say to the working people: ‘You will have to go through fifteen, twenty, fifty years of civil wars and wars between nations not only to change existing conditions but to change yourselves and make yourselves worthy of political power,’ you, on the con trary, say, ‘ We ought to get power at once, or else give up the fight.’ While we draw the attention of the German work man to the undeveloped state of the proletariat in Germany, you flatter the national spirit and the guild prejudices of the German artisans in the grossest manner, a method of proced ure without doubt the more popular of the two. Just as the democrats made a sort of fetish of the words ‘ the people,’ so you make one of the word ‘ proletariat.’ Like them you sub stitute revolutionary phrases for revolutionary evolution.” 1 What a prospect to hold out to those impatient Hotspurs, who, in their “ obscure and enthusiastic little societies, embit tered as they were by defeat, hot for revenge, and unbalanced by the very absence of the steadying contact of ordinary life,” hatched puerile conspiratory plans and indulged in frenzied ebullitions of excitement! Fifty years! and that, not to trans form society to their ideal, but to fit themselves for political power! A long series of struggles to gain political power, and
1 Quoted by Jaures, Studies in Socialism, page 44. “ THE MOTHER OF EXILES ” war after war — weakening Russia, freeing Italy from Austria and the Papacy, and uniting Germany — all necessary to the social revolution! Thus the intrepid and wise thinker, in whom there was no trace of the demagogic spirit, heedless of the calumnies such conduct must inevitably draw upon him, opposed the foolish notions of conspirators who played with social forces as chil dren play with fire. Against their view that, given energy, en thusiasm, courage and faith, a coup de surprise might be man aged at any time which would give nations into their hands, he stoutly and unflinchingly held up the larger view of what he called “ revolutionary evolution,” and rebuked the demagogues with all his power.And this is the man who was denounced throughout the civil ized world as a monster, a vile conspirator, though no man ever more consistently opposed subterranean, conspiratory meth ods than he! This is the man, too, upon whom the Prussian government was so soon to try to fasten the charge of plotting insurrections; the man to be accused later by Professor Karl Vogt of being the head of a terrible secret society, the “ Brim stone League,” with terroristic aims! It was for his attitude toward the advocates of “ acti an,” whom he contemptuously styled “ revolutionary phrase-mon gers,” that Marx was challenged to a duel by the hot-headed Willich one night at a meeting where the discussion had been long drawn out and exceedingly bitter. Of course, he treated the challenge with contempt and to their cries of “ traitor ” Willich and Barthelmy added the epithet “ coward! ” a word the excited Frenchman hissed in a peculiarly venomous fashion. Marx held duelling in great abhorrence and could not be tempted out of his self-control by any such tactics. But one of his friends, a young man named Conrad Schramm, was less prudent. Before Marx could prevent it, he had insulted Wil lich and forced the latter to challenge him. Accordingly it was agreed to fight the duel on the sea coast of Belgium. i78 KARL MARX The weapons chosen were pistols, and since Willich was a skilled marksman who “ never missed the ace of hearts at twenty paces,” while Schramm had never even held a pistol previous to the challenge, the “ duel ” seemed uncommonly like murder to Marx and his friends. The day of the duel passed without tidings of the result, and it was not until the evening of the second day that Willich’s second, Barthelmy, entered the Marx home and told the news. Marx was not at home, and Mrs. Marx, who distrusted the Frenchman and disliked him utterly, asked, “ What news? ” “ Schramm has a bullet in his head,” he replied in French and then withdrew. Poor Mrs. Marx was almost distracted with grief, for the generous Schramm was a trusted friend. But the next day, while the little circle of friends gathered in the Marx kitchen were mourning his fate, in walked Schramm himself with bandaged head. He had been struck by a glancing bullet and stunned merely, not killed as Willich and Barthelmy had taken for granted. They had not troubled to learn the truth, but hastened back to England, and Schramm followed by the next boat. , In the winter of 1850-1851 Marx gave a course of lectures | on political economy at the club rooms in Great Windmill Street, where, in November, 1847, it will be remembered, he had read the first draft of the Communist Manifesto. In this course of lectures he manifested a talent for popularizing a dif ficult subject which Liebknecht and other friends, who did not know of his success in that line, regarded with astonishment and hailed as a new manifestation of his versatility. The lec tures were exceedingly well attended, it is said, and their dis continuance, on account of the bitter strife that was going on, was regarded as a great loss.Though strongly urged to continue both, Marx abandoned the lectures and the fight, and turned to other tasks. Lieb knecht, however, felt it to be his duty to stand by the organiza tion, the only club of its kind in London, and to work for Wilhelm Liebknecht
harmony. This led to an estrangement from Marx which lasted several months, but was happily ended when Marx’s children met their old friend upon the street and insisted upon taking him to their home, where he had formerly been a daily visitor. When the two men met after their long separation, a hearty laugh and handshake restored the old-time good feel ing and the topic was never mentioned again by either. At the end of 1852 the Communist Alliance was dissolved, after the Cologne trial. Its work was at an end. In following Marx’s work and the struggle within the Communist Alliance, we have again outrun the calendar and must retrace our steps if we would witness that other tragic struggle, against cruel body-and-soul destroying poverty, which had but opened when we left the little family in the Camber well lodging to watch the political struggle. We go back, then, to the furnished rooms in Camberwell where we left Mrs. Marx with her fourth child at her breast in the latter part of 1849, with ^e fear of want ever before her eyes, while her husband vainly sought work. There were many days when bread was the only food to be had, and when Marx denied him self his share of that in order that the children might not go hungry. In the spring of 1850, when everything was looking as black and hopeless as could well be imagined, a new and terrible blow was struck at the family, a blow which fell upon the noble wife and mother with almost crushing force. Seated trying to nurse her baby at her flattened, half-starved breasts one day, she was roused by a demand for rent due, some five pounds sterling, almost a fortune to her in those days. There had been some arrangement to pay the money to the house-owner direct, in stead of to the lessee, of whom they were subtenants. This ar rangement the landlady, the lessee, seems to have repudiated. She demanded the five pounds at once and when the money was not forthcoming two constables stepped in and attached every thing in the rooms, even to the baby’s cradle and the children’s
i8o KARL MARX toys! The money seems, from a letter to Weydemeyer, written early in the year following, to have been raised somehow, but next day they had to leave the rooms, and, in order to pay the amounts owing to various tradesmen, almost everything they possessed had to be sold. But the letter of Mrs. Marx to Weydemeyer is such a powerful description of the suffering of those days that it requires no word of comment: “ Almost a year has gone by since I enjoyed the hospitality of your house, where I felt at home and so happy in the com pany of yourself and your dear wife; and in the whole time I have not given a sign of life. I was silent when your wife sent me that nice letter and even when we received news of the birth of your child. This silence often depressed my mind, but most of the time I was unable to write and it is a hard task even to-day. “ But circumstances force the pen in my hand — I beg you to send us the money received for the Review as soon as pos sible, and the rest as soon as you collect it. We are in sore need of it. Nobody can say of us that we ever made a noise about what we for years have sacrificed and had to endure; very little, or never, have our personal affairs or difficulties been noised abroad.“ My husband is very sensitive in such matters, and he pre fers to sacrifice the last, before he allows himself to be used by ‘ democratic beggary ’ like the great official men. ‘ What, how ever, he could expect from his friends mainly in Cologne, was an active, energetic stand for his Review. This he was enti tled to expect from the place where his sacrifices for the Rhen- ische Zeitung were known. Instead of that, the business was totally ruined by careless and unsystematic management, and one does not know whether the dragging along of the publisher or of the manager and friends in Cologne did the most harm. “ My husband was almost crushed by the petty worry of life and in such a horrible form that his whole energy was needed to hold him upright in the daily struggles. You know, dear Mr. Weydemeyer, what sacrifices my husband made for the paper. Thousands of thalers of money he put in. “ To save the political honour of the paper and the civic honour of his friends, he allowed the whole burden to be un “THE MOTHER OF EXILES” 181 loaded on his shoulders, all the income he sacrificed, and in the moment of his departure he paid the back salaries of the editors and other bills — and he was expelled by force from the country. You know that we did not keep anything for ourselves; I went to Frankfort to pawn my silverware, the last we had; at Cologne I sold my furniture. My husband went, when the unhappy epoch of the counter revolution set in, to Paris; I followed with my three children. Barely settled in Paris, we were again expelled; myself and my children were also forced to go. “ I followed him across the Channel. A month afterwards our fourth child was born. You know London and its condi tion well enough to know what it means. Three children and the birth of a fourth! For rent alone we paid 42 thalers a month. We were able to meet all that by our own means, de rived from the sale of some property, but our small resources were soon exhausted. In spite of agreements the money did not come from the Review except in small amounts, so that we drifted into the most terrible condition.“ I will describe to you only one single day of this life, and you will see that very few fugitives have gone through sim ilar experiences. The keeping of a wet nurse for my baby was out of question, so I resolved to nurse the child myself, in spite of constant terrible pains in the breast and in the back. But the poor little angel drank so much silent worry from me that he was sickly from the first day of his life, lying in pain day and night. He did not sleep a single night more than two or three hours. Then he became subject to cramps and was wavering constantly between death and miserable life. In those pains he drew so hard that my breast got sore and broke open; often the blood streamed into his little wavering mouth. “ So I was sitting one day, when unexpectedly our landlady stepped in, to whom we had paid 250 thalers during the winter and with whom we had a contract to pay after that the rent to the owner of the house. She denied the contract and demanded five pounds, the sum we owed for rent, and because we were un able to pay at once two constables stepped in and attached my small belongings, beds, linen, clothes, all, even the cradle of my poor baby and the toys of the two girls, who stood by crying bitterly. “ In two hours, they threatened, they would take all and
“ Schramm, our friend, hurried to the city to seek help. He stepped into a hack; the horses shied and ran away. He jumped out and they brought him bleeding into the house where I and my poor shaking children were crying and moaning. “ The next day we had to get out of the house. It was cold, raining and gloomy. My husband was out hunting for rooms. Nobody wanted to take us in, when he talked of four children. In the end a friend helped us. I sold my bedding to satisfy the druggist, the baker, the butcher and the milkman, who got scared and all at once presented their bills. The bedding was brought to the sidewalk and was loaded on a cart. We were able, after the selling of everything we possessed, to pay every cent. I moved with my little ones into our present two small rooms in the German Hotel, i, Leicester Street, Leicester Square, where we have found a week’s shelter and board for five and one-half pounds. “ Pardon me, my dear friend, for my so lengthy letter, but my heart is streaming this evening, and I must pour out my heart before one of our oldest, best and most earnest friends. Do not believe that these petty sufferings have bent us. I know only too well that we are not the only ones who suffer, and I rejoice that I even belong to the chosen privileged lucky ones, because my dear husband, the support of my life, yet stands at my side. But what strikes me the hardest and causes my heart to bleed is that my husband has to endure so many petty annoyances while he could be helped with so very little and that he, who is willing and with pleasure has helped so many, stands here so helpless and nobody to help him, believe me, dear Mister Weydemeyer, that we do not ask anything from anybody. “ The only thing my husband expected of those who re ceived so many thoughts from him, to whom he was so much a support in every way on the Review, is the little they owe him. I don’t know why I wrote, dear Mr. Weydemeyer, so much about our situation. My husband only knows that I, in his name, have begged you to hurry the collection and the sending of the money as much as possible. “ Farewell, dear friend. The heartiest regards to your dear wife and kiss your little angel for a mother who drops so many “ THE MOTHER OF EXILES ” 183 atear on her baby. Our three oldest children develop mag nificently in spite of all and everything. “ The girls are pretty, blooming and happy and our fat boy is an example of humor and fun. “ The little rascal sings the whole day with a monotonous pathos and a giant voice, and when he sings the words in Freili- grath’s Marseillaise, with a terrible voice, the whole house trembles. Maybe it is the historic mission of his mouth like his two unlucky predecessors to open the giant fight again in which we all will join hands. Farewell.”In the presence of such suffering and grief we stand speech less and reverent. No words from another pen could add any thing to the power of the poor suffering wife’s letter, that tor tured cry of a bruised soul. Only the light it throws upon the life of her beloved husband, who belongs to the whole world, justifies its publication even now, after the lapse of almost sixty years. And, alas! it must be added that even greater suffering was in store for her. It was, apparently, at this time that Marx was suspected by a sharp London pawnbroker of being a burglar! Mrs. Marx had received from her parents, as a wedding gift, some val uable antique silver, some three or four hundred years old, heirlooms which Baron von Westphalen had inherited from his aristocratic Scotch ancestors. Marx tried to pawn some of this silver, consisting of a lot of spoons bearing the crest of the Argylls and the family motto: “Truth is my maxim.” The pawnbroker was naturally suspicious when such costly and antique spoons were offered as a pledge by the German, and wanted to have Marx arrested on suspicion. It was only with great difficulty, after much explanation, that he escaped arrest. His address was taken, the police were informed and careful investigations made. But Marx never had any difficulty after wards when other silverware, bearing the same crest, was of- Ifered to the same honest pawnbroker. Of course, they could not afford to remain long in the Ger man Hotel, where the letter to Weydemeyer was written.
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KARL MARX ; Other, cheaper lodgings had to be obtained. These were found at last in Dean Street, Soho, a poor street, mainly occu pied by foreign refugees, French, Polish, German and Russian. The Marx family moved into No. 28, Dean Street, appar ently in June, 1850, occupying two small rooms on the second floor., As we know, they had sold their furniture at Camber well to pay their debts, and when they moved into the Dean Street house their furniture was exceedingly scanty. It was a bare, poor home in which Marx was found by many distin guished visitors in those days. And yet, despite that fact, his detractors continually circulated the charge that he was living in luxury while his fellow refugees were starving! From this place Mrs. Marx wrote to Weydemeyer: “ We are living here in entirely different circumstances from those of | Germany. We are living in one room with a small adjoining cabinet; six persons, paying more than for a whole house in Germany, and paying our rent weekly. You can imagine in I what a predicament that puts one, if even one thaler comes a' I day later than expected. Our chief anxiety, at the present time, is for our daily bread.” One room served as the sleeping room for the whole family, the other as kitchen, living room and study. Here gathered friends like Liebknecht, EcCarius, Charles Pfander, Freili grath, Schramm and other German friends. Here, too, came Louis Blanc and Ledru-Rollin and Barthelmy, the French exiles, Ernest Jones, George Julian Harney, whom he had known since 1847, Robert Owen, and, finally, during the last few months, the “ physical force ” Chartist, John Frost, the Welsh magistrate who in 1840 had been sentenced with two others to be “ hanged by the neck until they were dead — that afterwards their heads should be severed from their bodies, their bodies quartered, and disposed of as Her Majesty should see fit.” This monstrous sentence for taking part in an in surrection at Monmouth, in 1839, was never carried out. It was. reduced to one of transportation for life and finally, in
John Frost
1856, to complete amnesty. There were many other visitors beside those named. The brave, sensitive couple used all their powers to hide from their friends and visitors the real extent of their misery, not from feelings of shame, but an aversion to appealing to sympathy. A visitor to the Marx home in those days, one of the inner circle, privileged to enter without ceremony, found the devoted lovers, marching up and down the room, hand in hand, singing a German love-song —■ Goethe’s “ May Song,” with the ecstatic lines: Und Freud! und Wonne Aus jeder Brust. O Erd! O Sonne! O Gluck! O Lust! O Lieb! O Liebe! So golden schon, Wie Morgenwolken Auf jenen Hohn! This must have been rather a common exercise for the ro mantic lovers whose love for each other was never dulled by the bitterness of the struggle. In a letter to the present writer, Madame Lafargue, the only surviving child, writes: “ My mother was a beautiful woman, very tall, with a fine, full figure of which my father was a great admirer. I can re member how, when we were children, he used to walk up and down the room with her, with his arm around her waist.” Equally tender and beautiful is the daughter’s memory of her father’s love for his children: “ Karl Marx was the kindest, the best of fathers; there was nothing of the disciplinarian in him, nothing authoritative in his manner. He had the rich and generous nature, the warm and sunny disposition, that the young appreciate; he was ve hement, but I have never known him to be morose or sullen, and steeped in work and worry as he might be, he was always full of pleasantry with us children, always ready to amuse and be amused by us. He was our comrade and playfellow.”
r 86 KARL MARX Liebknecht, Lessner and many others have also borne testi mony to the passionate love for children which Marx always displayed. This love for little children dominated the whole life of the man. The suffering of a child always moved him to compas sion as nothing else could do. Liebknecht has told how, as he walked through the streets of London, Marx would break away from his companions to fondle strange children and give them pennies, and how impossible it was for him to refuse the appeal of a beggar who was accompanied by a child. Many times he told his friends that in the Christ of the New Testa ment he admired most his great love and tenderness for little children. Lessner, who reports this, tells us that Marx was often seen upon Hampstead Heath “ hustling about with a Crowd of school children.” During the worst days of his poverty, while he lived in Dean Street, he was known as “ Daddy Marx ” to most of the children in the neighbourhood. In those days one might have seen in the streets a handsome man, of striking appearance, rather above the middle height, with small hands and feet and an expressive face framed, as it were, by coal black hair and beard, with children all around him, some holding his hands, others clinging to his coat tails, shouting merrily, “ Daddy iMarx! Daddy Marx!” This love for children Marx re tained to the end of his life, and during the last long illness the presence of one of his little grandchildren seemed to be his only source of comfort and consolation. Love for children — not merely for his own children, but for all — must have exercised a great influence upon his life. It is scarcely conceivable that he could have borne the fierce struggle against adversity with so much dignity and patience except for the tenderness and sweetness developed by his asso ciation with the little ones. Those who found him upon his knees in the Dean Street home, giving the children rides upon his back, and shouting as boisterously as they, knew that it “ THE MOTHER OF EXILES ” 187 was as natural and as necessary for him as for the children. And some of them at least knew also that his love for the little ones added to the pain of the struggle, that their suffering was the heaviest burden of his grief. In 1851 the fifth child was born, a girl, named Francisca. > ’ The child was born in the midst of the fight, and the poor \ mother lamented that for many weeks she could not afford j it a cradle — little dreaming that she was soon to grieve at her | inability to provide it with a coffin! Then came a little relief. Freiligrath, whose friendship with Longfellow gave him some 1 literary connections in America, recommended him as a de- 1 sirable contributor to C. A. Dana, who had not yet lost sym- I pathy with Brook Farm ideals, and he became London cor- frespondent of the New York Tribune, of which Dana was? managing editor. He contributed to the Tribune weekly arti-1 cles, often several columns long, for which he was paid five * dollars per article. This was for years his only regular and i certain income. Upon five dollars a week it was barely possible to keep from starvation, but impossible to keep from hard and oppressive poverty. Often his thoughts turned to business as the only means of escape left, but his loving wife restrained him, her love for the cause being equal to his own. Thus it was that any extraordinary expenditure, such as the illness of one of the f children, for example, brought unimaginable suffering to the * home. So it was when early in 1852, the fourth child, Henry, j died. It was the first time that death had visited the humble home, and the blow fell upon the parents the more heavily be cause they knew that their little one, who had sucked blood from his famished mother’s breasts, was literally slain by pov erty. And then, while the shadow of this great grief rested upon them, their hearts received another blow. Not long after the j death of the fourth child, they lost the fifth also — little Fran- ( cisca. One wonders what had become of the “ Marx luck ” 18 8 KARL MARX so proverbial in his boyhood! The mother’s diary contains a picture of the suffering and misery of the family at this time, which is almost ghastly in its grim eloquence: “On Easter of the same year—1852 — our poor little Francisca died of severe bronchitis. Three days the poor child wrestled with death. She suffered so . . . Her little dead body lay in the small back room; we all of us (i. e., Marx, his wife, Helene Demuth and the three living children) went into the front room, and when night came we made our beds on the floor, the three living children lying by us. And we wept for the little angel resting near us, cold and dead. The death of the dear child came in the time of our bitterest pov erty. Our German friends could not help us; Engels, after vainly trying to get literary work in London, had been obliged to go, under very disadvantageous conditions, into his father’s firm, as a clerk, in Manchester; Ernest Jones, who often came to see us at this time, and had promised help, could do noth ing. . . . “ In the anguish of my heart I went to a French refugee who lived near and who had sometimes visited us. I told him our sore need. At once with the friendliest kindness he gave me two pounds sterling. With that we paid for the little coffin in which the poor child now sleeps peacefully. I had no cradle for her when she was born and even the last small resting place was long denied her. What did we suffer when she was car ried away to her last place of rest! ” Here, in the Dean Street house, in the front room, facing the street window, Marx wrote his exposure of the Cologne Com munists’ trial and prepared the defence; here he made many; notes for his Das Kapital, wrote part of his Zur Kritik det politischen Oekonomie, The Eighteenth Brumaire, all the New. York Tribune articles now reprinted in the volume entitled Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany, and those comprised in that larger volume, The Eastern Question. He wrote almost always with the children running in and out of the room, sometimes while he wrote pretending to be their stubborn horse, receiving their whippings and scoldings with the utmost good nature and patience.“ THE MOTHER OF EXILES ” 189 Early in 1852 he wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, that profound and brilliant monograph in which he exposed the coup d’etat of. December, 1851, which put an end to constitutional government in France and led to the restora tion of the empire. The monograph was written for publi cation in an American monthly called Die Revolution and con stituted its entire second number, which was also its last. This short-lived journal was published by Marx’s old friend, Joseph .Weydemeyer, who had come to the United States not long before and at once began to inoculate the followers of Wilhelm Weitling with the doctrines of Marxian Socialism. Weyde meyer, with the financial aid of a German merchant named Meyer, conducted a vigorous campaign in both English and German and infused new life into the movement. Later Weydemeyer served with great distinction in the Civil War, as an engineer under Fremont. He built the fortifications around St. Louis, in which city he died after a long period of service in the municipal administration. In spite of the misery and privations of this period, Marx n absolutely refused to accept a single penny in payment for his f lectures to workingmen at the Arbeiter Bildungsverein and else- • where. The lecture fees usually paid by such bodies were very modest, ranging from five to ten shillings per lecture, and had he accepted such payment for his lectures no one could have accused him of “ exploiting the movement ” without being made ridiculous by the charge. Professor Kinkel, Willich, and others, regularly took the fees offered, but Marx could not be persuaded to do so. No amount of urging could ever induce him to accept the smallest amount from the funds con tributed by members often as poor as himself, no matter how great his distress might be. Quixotic? Perhaps so, but splen did nevertheless. One need not defend his course to appreciate the heroism of his decision to keep himself above the suspicion i of “ living upon the movement,” which had so often weakened 1 the power of working-class leaders. 190 KARL MARX Marx felt keenly the injustice of the charge, so assiduously circulated by his enemies, that he was living in luxury while his fellow refugees were enduring great hardships. Referring to this subject, he wrote to Weydemeyer, in a letter dated August 2, 1851: “You can imagine that my present situa tion is very gloomy; if this continues any longer, my wife will surely succumb. The constant cares, the meanness and sor didness of this struggle are breaking her down. To this must be added the infamous tactics of my opponents, who have never so much as attempted to attack my principles, but find gratification for their lack of power to do so by spreading un utterably infamous reports in order to disgrace me before the public. . . . Naturally, I would laugh at the whole filthi ness, nor can it possibly hinder me for one moment from my accustomed work. But you will understand that my wife, who is ill and, besides, suffering the daily grinding life of our wretched and sad circumstances, and whose nervous system is already affected, cannot be expected to gain strength when, day after day, these exhalations of democratic miasma are brought to her ears by stupid tale-bearers.” In May, 1851, a great reception was given to the aged pa triarch of Utopian Socialism, Robert Owen, in celebration of his eightieth birthday, at which Marx, Liebknecht, Lessner and several other members of the Marx circle attended. Marx was very fond of Owen and generous in his estimate of his character and work. He admired most of all, perhaps, that fine devotion to truth as he understood it, and disregard of j popularity, which marked Owen’s life. Contempt for popu lar opinion was one of his own most strongly developed char acteristics. He was fond, says Liebknecht, of quoting as his motto the defiant line of Dante, with which he afterwards con cluded his preface to Das Kapital: Segui il tuo corso e lascia dir le genti. I After his withdrawal from the Communistiche Arbeiter Bild- |\ungsverein, for several years Marx lived a life of comparative Joseph Weydemeyek
serenity and freedom from strife, except, of course, the strug- » gle with poverty which was ever present. He loved to play 1 checkers and chess with his fellow exiles at night after days i spent in hard study at the British Museum, and found in the games great relaxation. At checkers he was an expert, it is said, but chess he played only fairly well. He was, moreover, = a poor loser. When he won his joy was boisterous and un confined, but when he lost he not infrequently lost his temper also. Then it became necessary for the good “ Lenchen ” to assert her authority and command the players to cease, and Marx obeyed as if he were a child. Marx has been frequently described as a man without a sense of humour. Thus in Oswald Yorke’s Secret History of the International, he is referred to as “ a cold, unsmiling, icy man,” and his friend, W. Harrison Riley, who was closely as sociated with him in the International, described him as being “ rigidly mathematical ” and “ without sentiment.” On the other hand, Professor E. S. Beesly, who knew him well from 1867 to his death, speaks of him as being “most genial and pleasant.” While he certainly managed to impress a good many casual observers as a taciturn and unemotional man, without humour, the real Marx was a very different sort of a person, as his cor respondence shows. Few men could better tell or enjoy a joke, even when it was at his own expense. In his letters he very often indulged in that sly, sardonic humour for which he was famous from his youth, and up to a few years before his death he loved to indulge now and then in boisterous boyish fun. Liebknecht relates how, on one occasion, at a period of their j exile which was full of great hardship, Marx, Edgar Bauer and 't himself, at two o’clock in the morning, found merriment and I excitement in smashing a number of street lamps and then sue- { cessfully outrunning a London policeman and making their I escape. This student’s prank was a manifestation of a boyish exuberance which was by no means rare in the life of Marx.
These glimpses of the man at play reveal a character vastly different from that of the taciturn, cold, unemotional man that he is so often described as being. That in some moods, to some persons, he was such a person is doubtless true enough. But to those who knew him best, those whom he trusted and loved, he revealed a very different side of his nature. In 1842, in the earliest of his attacks upon the Prussian censor, he had described himself as “ a humourist,” and a humourist he re-, mained all his life long. This perhaps is as suitable a place as any in which to re fer to the almost Puritanical austerity of his domestic life. No old-time New England Puritan ever guarded the moral atmosphere of his home with greater watchfulness than did Karl Marx. The surest and quickest way to earn his dis pleasure was to utter vulgar remarks, or to tell stories or jokes of a questionable nature, in the hearing of women or children — especially children. He abhorred the tendency, frequently enough associated with immature radicalism, to decry or ignore the conventional reticence upon certain subjects in ordinary conversation. No ribald song or jest, no “ broad ” discussion of topics customarily tabooed, was tolerated by this strangely conservative radical, at once revolutionist and Puritan.
The three years immediately following the dissolution of the Communist Alliance, which took place at the end of 1852, were, politically, “ years of almost idyllic peace ” for Marx, f as he loved to describe them. They were happily free from controversy and from political agitation and intrigue. Prac- t tically all his time was devoted to literary work and study. 1 His articles for the New York Tribune involved a great deal ' of research and study, in addition to which he had begun the 1 great work upon which his fame chiefly rests. A large part 1 of his time was spent in the reading room of the British Museum, where he was for many years a familiar figure. He i early made the acquaintance of the late Dr. Richard Garnett, whose assistance was of the utmost value to him. Hunger was by no means a rare experience for Marx during those years, and he frequently worked at the museum when he was weak from lack of food. His only regular income was the meagre payment for his Tribune articles, about a pound sterling a week. Engels had by this time improved his posi- * tion somewhat, and his purse was always open to aid his friend, j but the black shadow of poverty hung continually over thejj little household. Marx often contemplated giving up his I chosen work and going into business, and would probably have f done so but for his brave and loyal wife’s vigorous protest and her cheery optimism. Early in December, 1854, a tragic event occurred which caused no little excitement among the radical exiles. Barthel- my, the excitable Frenchman whose acquaintance we made in the last chapter, shot and killed a civilian and a policeman 13 193 I94 KARL MARX under circumstances which made his arrest and trial of interna tional importance. At a French “ fencing salon,” in Rathbone Place, on Oxford Street, where Marx used to indulge in sword and sabre fencing with many of the French habitues of the place, Barthelmy, who was an excellent fencer, was a con stant attendant. At a shooting gallery maintained in connec tion with the salon he practised diligently until he became also an expert pistol shot. Barthelmy conceived the idea of kill ing Napoleon. That there might be no chance of his victim’s recovery he planned to shoot him not with a bullet, but with buck shot coated with sulphur. In case that should miscarry, he had arranged to stab him. Barthelmy set out upon his sanguinary mission well sup plied with money and everything else necessary for the under taking. But he had, after the French fashion, says Liebknecht, a “ lady friend ” whom he wished to take with him and who, “ also after the French fashion,” had relations with the police. On the way to take the boat they passed the shop of Barthel- my’s employer and he remembered that some wages were due to him. Entering the office for the purpose of collecting this money, he began to quarrel with his late employer, who pro ceeded to eject him, whereupon the excitable Frenchman, for getting his mission in his anger, drew his pistol and killed the employer. Attempting to make his escape he was stopped by two policemen, both of whom he shot, killing one and wound ing the other. The fact that he had intended to kill the Emperor Napoleon was not brought out at the trial, which was, nevertheless, one of the most sensational trials that had taken place in many years. Was the defendant guilty of murder or of manslaugh ter only? The most eminent jurists in England said man slaughter. It was clear that there was no premeditation, with out which he could not be guilty of murder. He had shot his employer only when he was attacked, he had acted in self-de fence. So, too, in the case of the policeman he killed. There
was no premeditation. Still, Barthelmy was convicted of mur der, on the 4th of January, 1855, and eighteen days later was hanged at Newgate. It is said that the “ lady friend ” having put the police upon the right trail, the jury was secretly in formed of Barthelmy’s purpose to kill Napoleon, and that their verdict was the result of that knowledge. Barthelmy’s tragic end was a striking justification of the instinctive dislike and distrust of him which Mrs. Marx had manifested from their very first meeting. It was because Marx was resolutely opposed to all such “ action ” as that which Barthelmy had planned and so miserably failed to carry out, that the latter denounced him as a “ coward ” and “ traitor.” It is said that on more than one occasion he threat ened to kill “ traitor Marx,” and that Mrs. Marx pledged her husband not to fence with him under any circumstances. On the 16th of January, 1856, the sixth and last child, | Eleanor, was born. Her coming was the source of new sor-( row and anxiety to the parents, for she was a puny, ill-devel oped weakling and it seemed almost impossible to believe that she could live. Extraordinary care on the part of the wise mother kept the child alive and she lived to be a woman of great strength, an indefatigable worker in the international Socialist movement. The story of her unhappy union with ’ the brilliant and scholarly but conscienceless Dr. Edward Ave-! ling, and her tragic suicide in 1898, forms one of the most pa- ’ thetic chapters in Socialist history.A few months after the birth of little Eleanor death once more entered the home, taking away the third child, Edgar, the only boy, aged nine years. This child, namesake of his uncle, Edgar von Westphalen, the Prussian Minister of State, of whom Marx was very fond, was the pride and hope of his fond parents. Not merely was he the only son, but he dis played remarkable talents, indicating that he had inherited some of his father’s intellectual gifts. But the body was too weak and puny to sustain the mind. Ailing from the hour of his birth. 196 KARL MARX the child might have grown strong had it been possible for his parents to provide the necessary conditions. These lacking, he died a victim to poverty, as the two other children had done four years before. For many weeks the child lay ill, and the parents knew that there was no hope of his recovery. The strain of those sad sleepless weeks told heavily upon Marx, reducing him almost to a nervous wreck. And although he knew that the child’s death was inevitable, yet when it came it brought him no relief. He was frantic and inconsolable in his grief. At the funeral, in the cemetery connected with Whitfield’s tabernacle, it was feared that he would jump into the grave as the coffin was lowered into it. It is said that for months after the death of his boy Marx was almost like one in a trance, so completely was his life dominated by grief. , In 1856, too, Mrs. Marx was called to Trier, her old home, (to the deathbed of her mother, the Baroness von Westphalen. The old lady seemed to improve after the arrival of her daugh ter and grandchildren, but the improvement did not last long. Within a few days she died, leaving a small estate to be divided between Mrs. Marx and her brother, Edgar von Westphalen. The share of each was only a few hundred thalers, and with her } small legacy, Jenny Marx returned to London with her chil- 1 dren, to establish the first comfortable home of her married life. . Toward the end of 1856 Marx once more took an active part t in the Communistische Arbeiter Bildungsverein. In January, Lessner, after four and a half years’ imprisonment, was re leased and in May he arrived in London. Finding the club in a very demoralized condition, he set about trying to effect a change. He gathered together many of the old members who had become inactive, and organized a campaign against the “ bourgeois ” element, led by Professor Kinkel. The Lessner faction succeeding, Kinkel and some of his strongest supporters were expelled, and the club entered upon a new phase. Lieb knecht gave lectures and lessons in English, and Marx deliv DOMESTIC AND POLITICAL STRUGGLES 197 ered a course of lectures on political economy similar to the course delivered in the winter of 1850-1851. Once more the Communistische Arbeiter Bildungsverein became the centre of great activity and enthusiasm, entering upon that period of harmony and prosperity which enabled it to render so much assistance to the International almost a decade later. Early in 1857 the family moved into a larger and more j comfortable house in the suburbs, No. 9, Grafton Terrace. | This was made possible only by the legacy Mrs. Marx had received on the death of her mother. Except for this and the aid rendered by Engels the financial condition of the family had j not perceptibly improved, but the age of the two oldest children j made it impossible to continue at the Dean Street house any f longer. But the big comfortable house seemed to indicate increased prosperity, much to the disadvantage of Marx. More impecunious exiles turned to the Marx home for food and shelter, and none was ever denied, no matter how great the sacrifice might be. Then, too, malicious gossip seized upon the sign of apparently increasing prosperity to prove that Marx was “ living upon the movement ” in relative luxury. The truth is that the struggle with poverty was rather intensified by the imperative necessity of the extra expense, and by the imposition of impecunious visitors, already noted. Soon after moving into the new house Marx was stricken > by his first serious illness. His magnificent, almost iron con- f stitution had at last weakened under the heavy strain to which it had been subjected. For years it had been his habit to work a great deal at night. The days were largely given to study and research, often interrupted by the stream of visitors who sought information or advice from him — fellow revolu tionists with plans to discuss and newspaper men seeking in terviews. The editor of the Times, for instance, quite frequently sent a confidential man to get his opinion. The result was that more and more he found himself forced to work far into the night. Returning at midnight from some198 KARL MARX t meeting, he would write until dawn and then content himself j with two, or at most three, hours’ sleep. | This had gone on for years, and combined with the worry occasioned by his poverty, lack of proper nourishment and ex cessive indulgence in the cheapest and vilest tobacco and cigars, ruined his health so that he was never again the same man. Liver trouble and other functional disorders developed, and when under wise medical treatment he recovered, he soon lapsed into the old ways until a new crisis compelled him to adopt a more rational regime. Although he recovered suf ficiently to work for another twenty-five years, he was never again really well or strong. Despite these troubles, Marx found time to write anti-Rus- Jsian articles for circulation by the Urqiihartite committees, in cluding a series upon the diplomatic history of the 18th cen tury, which threw a good deal of light upon Anglo-Russian politics. Marx gladly co-operated with David Urquhart and his followers in their anti-Russian campaign, for he regarded Russia as the leading reactionary power in the world, and never Most an opportunity of expressing his hatred for it. In David Urquhart he found a kindred soul, to whom he became greatly attached. Urquhart had been in the diplomatic service, hav ing served in the British Embassy at Constantinople, and still, in the fifties, maintained intimate relations with many diplomats and statesmen. In addition to being perhaps the greatest liv ing authority upon the political situation in the Orient, he was a man of remarkable learning and rare intellectual gifts. His bete now was Russia and he enjoyed nothing so much as to trace Russian diplomacy through all its tortuous ways and expose to the British public its duplicity and knavery. Lord Palmerston he hated with an intense and implacable hatred. Notwithstanding the great “ Pam’s ” reputation as a despot-hater and a firebrand, Urquhart denounced him as the conscious tool of Russian absolutism. The influence which Urquhart obtained over Marx was remarkable. Marx prob-Dean Street, Where He Made His Pre- Grafton Terrace, Where He Lived for Maitland Park Road, Where He Died paratory Notes for “Capital" Several Years, up to 1872-73 Karl Marx's London Residences
ably never relied so much upon the judgment of another man j as he did upon that of Urquhart. Nor was Marx the only ‘ German of note who acknowledged Urquhart’s leadership. Lothar Bucher, later the friend and literary executor of Las salle and the Adlatus of Bismarck, was another ardent disciple. How completely Marx adopted the Urquhartite creed may be gathered from his merciless criticism of Palmerston in the series of articles published in pamphlet form, The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston, in which he vigorously assails the “ charla tan ” and dispels the popular illusion that Palmerston was an enemy of Russia. During the years 1857-1858 the Freethought movement, p under the leadership of Charles Bradlaugh, developed great j strength in London, where it had lagged since the late forties. * Bradlaugh gave a regular course of Sunday afternoon lectures, not always directed against current theology, but often against political and social evils and abuses. Mrs. Marx was a regu lar attendant at these lectures, always taking the two eldest children, Jenny and Laura, with her. Marx went also on 1 several occasions, but he had very little respect for the “ pro-1 fessional atheist,” and regarded the “ Bishop of Atheism,” as ; he called Bradlaugh, with a good deal of aversion and suspi-1 cion. Mrs. Marx, on the other hand, regarded Bradlaugh [ with great favour. She believed that he would become a tower of strength to the working-class movement. But Marx, who entertained the profoundest respect for his wife’s judgment in such matters, smiled at her enthusiasm and predicted that he would become a typical bourgeois Liberal, a prediction which was amply fulfilled. Later on, Marx fought desperately to 1 keep Bradlaugh out of the “ International Workingmen’s As-1 sociation.” During 1858 Marx finished his A Contribution to the Criti- J que of Political Economy, upon which he had been engaged I for nearly eight years in the intervals of his journalistic and / political activities. The manuscript of this work, faithfully *
, The same year, 1859, saw the publication of Darwin’s epoch- 3 making work, The Origin of Species, and Marx regarded it j as a fortunate coincidence that his own book appeared in the i same year as that of Darwin. He recognised at once the im- | portance and merit of Darwin’s work, and at once brought it to the attention of his fellow radicals at their meetings. Lieb- knecht has told us how for months the Marx circle spoke of nothing except the value of Darwin’s work. With great frank- f ness Marx likened his own work in the sociological field to that lof Darwin in the biological field, and he was always manifestly I pleased when others made the comparison. Once, in the late sixties, when it had become a commonplace in Marxian circles, W. Harrison Riley, editor of the International Herald, made the now familiar comparison and Marx replied: “ Nothing ever gives me greater pleasure than to have my name thus linked onto Darwin’s. His wonderful work makes my own
Among the activities of 1859 his contributions to the pages of a Communistic paper, Das Volk, deserve to be chronicled. Early in the year, Professor Kinkel had started a weekly Ger man paper, an exponent of middle-class radicalism, in which he attacked Marx and his followers. The members of the Communistische Arbeiter Bildungsverein decided to start an op position paper and requested the support of Marx and Engels. The first number of Das Volk appeared on the 7th of May, 1859, and only sixteen numbers appeared altogether. Marx and Engels contributed some remarkable articles on the Austro- Italian war, Engels discussing the war itself and Marx the policy of Prussia in relation thereto. DOMESTIC AND POLITICAL STRUGGLES 201 Meantime, in the years 1858-1859, Marx was drawn once f more into the political struggle, and into the bitterest personal j controversy of his life, a controversy which cost him many! months of arduous labour. That was the year of the Franco-S Sardinian struggle against Austria for Italian independence.! In the autumn of 1858 the Sardinian statesman, Camillo Benso di Cavour, and Napoleon III of France — le petit Napoleon — met at Plombieres and arranged a secret treaty providing for an alliance of Napoleon with the King of Sardinia for the freeing of Lombardy from the oppressive yoke of Austrian rule, and the overthrow of Austrian supremacy throughout cen tral Italy. This, in Cavour’s mind, was to be only a step to ward the realization of his cherished dream of a United Italy. In pursuance of this pact, French troops, under the command of the Emperor, entered northern Italy. With the desire of the Italians to be freed from the Austrian j yoke Marx, like all liberal and radical thinkers, was in full , sympathy, but that did not imply approval of the war. Austria J at this time belonged to the German Confederation, and the question at once arose as to what should be the attitude of the rest of the Confederate states. Was it their duty to sup port their sister state, Austria, alike as a matter of loyalty and solidarity, and especially against France, or should they remain neutral? Both views were urged with a great deal of force of argument. In order that we may understand the controversy which arose, and the position taken by Marx, it is necessary to bear in mind a few basic facts. From an Italian point of view the war was one of emancipation from the rule of an oppressive and reactionary despotism, and that emancipation once achieved, the unification of Italy would be brought nearer. Yet there were Italian patriots far-seeing and courageous enough to op pose the union with Napoleon III. For instance, Mazzini, whose name must always be associated with the names of Cavour and Garibaldi in the history of the struggle for Italian
It was known, then, even before the war began, that Napo leon hoped through the war upon Austria, in the name of Italian freedom, to extend the authority of France in European poli tics. It was also well understood that Napoleon was in col lusion with the Tsar of Russia; that the war would assist Russian intrigues in the southeast of Europe. Many German Liberals, like Lothar Bucher, for example, held that the freeing of Italy was only a pretext for the war, that the real object was the weakening of Germany and an extension of the twin evils of Bonapartism and Russian barbarism. Therefore, they would have Prussia, as a member of the Confederacy, stand by Austria, and although the Italian cause was just and merited sympathy, yet! if the Italians fought under an alliance with Napoleon they must bear the fortunes of war and be treated as his confederates. On the other hand, a large part of the German middle class was enthusiastic in its praise and support of Louis Napoleon. The French Emperor knew that if the other states of the German Empire, especially Prussia, should go to the assistance of Austria, it would prove a very serious DOMESTIC AND POLITICAL STRUGGLES 203 matter and possibly involve the defeat of himself and his ally. So, through his agents and emissaries, he carried on a tre mendous campaign in Prussia in favour of complete neutrality. The supporters of Napoleon stoutly contended that the Ger man people could have no interest in upholding Austrian des potism in Italy, and, further, that Austria was the most re actionary state in Europe,' whose defeat would mean an advance of the cause of freedom throughout Europe. To this Austrian writers replied that the success of the Na poleonic plans in Italy would endanger Germany. The next step in the Bonapartist campaign would be an attack upon the Rhine. All who desired to protect the left bank of the Rhine from French assault must support Austria’s military supremacy in Northern Italy. They appealed to German patriotism, with the shrewdly conceived cry that the defence of the Rhine must be conducted on the Po. There were many Germans, including not a few radicals, who were as much opposed to Austria as Napoleon III and his emissaries could desire, but for entirely different reasons. So far as the French Emperor’s plans were concerned their attitude was one of indifference, but they believed that they could turn the strife between Austria and France into an occasion of ad vantage for Prussia and the cause of German unity under Prus sian leadership. Their programme included the expulsion of Austria from the German Confederation, the furtherance of the unification of Germany and the creation of a “ Greater Prussia.” France was to be allowed to wage war against Austria without interference and the “ defence of the Rhine ” to wait until it was attacked. This view, which of course quite suited the Bonapartist interests, was held by no less a person than Ferdinand Lassalle, who expounded it with great energy and ability in a pamphlet entitled The Italian War and the Mission of Prussia. He wanted the annihilation of Austria, and to that end, quite as much as for the sake of Italian free dom, urged that so long as Napoleon played the part of libera204 KARL MARX tor, Germany should give him a free hand in Italy. Almost exactly the same views were urged by another German radical, Professor Karl Vogt, the naturalist. Of course, Marx took an opposite view. His hatred and contempt for Napoleon III he had expressed seven years before in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, and it was not at all likely that he would be deceived by the Emperor’s pre tended concern for Italy’s freedom. If Napoleon wanted to pose as the champion of Italian independence let him begin by restoring Corsica to Italy! To his distrust of Napoleon III t add his bitter hatred of Russia and it will at once be apparent Ithat Marx could not do other than oppose the war upon Aus tria, though from no love for Austria or concern for her do ; minion over Italy. Moreover, Marx was an ardent advocatei of the unification of Germany, and he believed that the war upon Austria was a Franco-Russian intrigue designed to weaken Germany and the revolutionary movement in France. With full Urquhartite fervour he wrote to Ernest Jones’s paper, The People’s Press, opposing the war and ridiculing those democrats who favoured it, especially men like Lassalle and Vogt. This led to controversy with Lassalle, who de fended his view in a number of lengthy letters, but finally con ceded much that Marx contended. That the relations of the two men were somewhat strained by the controversy is, how ever, quite certain. Vogt, on the other hand, rushed into print with a bitter personal attack upon Marx, making charges of the gravest possible character against “ the Dictator of the Proletariat.” Marx was denounced as a calumniator, a man utterly without honour, and as the chief ogre of a fiendish Brim stone League, devoted to the most revolting form of conspiracy.Marx was not the man to let such an attack go unanswered. Vogt’s pamphlet was to him as the smell of gunpowder to an old war-horse. He immediately set about preparing a reply. With characteristic energy and patience, he ransacked libraries and conducted a widespread correspondence until he had ac
As soon as the book appeared it was apparent, even to ■ Vogt’s best friends, that Marx had dealt his antagonist a crush- ] ing blow. Quickly passing from a defensive to an aggressive j attitude, Marx exposed Vogt in the most merciless manner. I He presented a convincing mass of evidence tending to dis- j credit Vogt and denounced him as a paid Bonapartist agent, i Eleven years later, when the Tuileries gave up their secrets, and the Republican Government published the accounts of the Napoleonic secret service funds, under the letter “ V ” ap peared the significant item: “Vogt, received August, 1859, 40,000 francs.” Whether there was anything dishonourable in Vogt’s service to the Bonapartist clique is a question of little interest now. It is sufficient to know that Marx’s book completely discredited Vogt and put an end to his charges once and for all. It is, perhaps, worth while observing that the association of the Ger man revolutionist of 1848 with the fortunes of the French Emperor was not quite so unnatural as it might at first sight appear to be. Louis Napoleon had in his younger days pro fessed radical sentiments. Early in the thirties he had written a pamphlet outlining a liberal constitution for France, and in the forties, while confined in prison, he had written and pub lished a book entitled The Extinction of Pauperism, advocat ing the colonization of waste lands, and the formation of Social istic communities. And both as President and as Emperor he gathered a number of former revolutionists into his service. Meantime, before Marx had completed his reply to Vogt, the most odious of the latter’s charges had been reproduced by the Berlin National Zeitung. Under cover of the pretext of re- ’ viewing Vogt’s pamphlet, the editor of the National Zeitung ,
This treatment at the hands of Prussian justice made Marx furious, and he wrote to Lassalle saying that he had supposed such an outrageous travesty of justice to be impossible. To this Lassalle replied rather satirically: “ Dear fellow, how I wronged you once lately when in one of my letters I said you saw things in too dark colors! Prus sian justice, at any rate, you seem to have regarded in far too rosy a light! But I’ve had to endure far other things than you from this crew; could bring far stronger proof for what you say, have experienced worse cases altogether at their hands, and that three times three dozen times, and in criminal, and more especially in purely civil cases. . . . Uff! I must drive away the remembrance of all this. For when I think of this daily judicial murder of ten long years that I passed through, then waves of blood seem to tremble before my eyes, and it seems to me as if a sea of blood would choke me. . . . But never do my lips curl with so deep a smile of contempt as when I hear our judges and justice spoken of. Galley-slaves seem to me very honourable persons compared with our judges.” This bitter, contemptuous attack upon the Prussian courts by Lassalle, and Marx’s misplaced confidence in their integrity and his subsequent disappointment, form a rather striking contrast to the popular notion of the characteristics of the two men. Ferdinand Lassalle
According to this notion, Lassalle was first of all a patriot and only secondly a social revolutionist, while Marx was first and last a revolutionist without a fatherland. Lassalle is painted as a nationalist in politics, always dominated by a strong love for Germany, while Marx is painted as an internationalist, car ing nothing for Germany, but only for the Universal Republic and the Revolution. As a matter of fact, Marx was a good deal more of a German patriot than Lassalle, as their respective attitudes upon the Italian war clearly showed. In the cor respondence of the two men, published by Bernstein in his biog raphy of Lassalle,1 Lassalle’s attitude is as “ treasonable ” as that of Marx is “ patriotic.” Misfortunes poured in upon the unhappy household during the year i860. In addition to the disappointment of Marx j and his wife over the failure of the lawsuit against Herr Zabel, t which had cost them a great deal of money and forced them ; into debt more deeply than ever, a series of other troubles en gulfed them. Both were worried by the bitter and unjust at tacks of Vogt and his friends in the press of Germany and America. The injury was all the greater on account of the fact that Marx could not get the papers to publish his denial and refutation of these charges. After spending months upon the task, he found that he could only get Herr Vogt printed at his own expense, adding still further to his burden of debt./ And when the book appeared it was ignored by the news papers which had attacked him, and which, in many instances, continued to do so.Worse than all, both Marx and his wife became dangerously > ill, the doctors’ bills added to the already too heavy burden of poverty and debt. Mrs. Marx had barely finished copying | the manuscript of Herr Vogt, and sent it to the printer, when | she was suddenly stricken with smallpox, at that time very | prevalent in London. The three children were at once taken to the home of Liebknecht, who lived in the same neighbour
. To meet the needs of this trying period, Marx was forced 1 to the expedient of borrowing small sums of money at an ex orbitant rate of interest, often as much as thirty, or even fifty, I per cent. The result of this was, naturally, to increase both ) his poverty and his worry at the same time. His wife had I hardly recovered sufficiently to be able to leave her bed when he was stricken by an illness which almost cost his life. The chronic liver trouble took an acute form, and for many days his life hung in the balance. After four weeks he rose from his bed, greatly enfeebled, to renew his old fight against poverty and debt. It was well toward the end of January, 1861, when he returned to his desk. Yüklə 1,7 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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