II. The Bristlers

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II. The Bristlers[edit source]

"But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth,

nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled

up with guts and midriff."

(Shakespeare)[1]

"Bristlers" or "Brimstone Gang" is what it says in the original Biel gospel ("Magnum Opus", Documents, p. 31). "Brimstone Gang" or else "Bristlers" is what we find in the "Magnum Opus" (p. 136).[2]

According to both versions the "Brimstone Gang" and the "Bristlers" are one and the same gang. The "Brimstone Gang" was, as we have seen, dead and buried by the middle of 1850. Therefore the "Bristlers'' too? Our "well-rounded character" is the civilising agent attached to the December Gang, and civilisation, according to Fourier, is distinguished from barbarism by the fact that in it lies simple are replaced by lies composite.[3]

Our "composite" Imperial Falstaff informs us ("Magnum Opus", p. 198) that a certain Abt is the "lowest of the low". What admirable self-effacement: Vogt puts himself in the positive, but his Abt in the superlative, appointing him, as it were, his Field Marshal Ney. When Vogt's original gospel appeared in the Biel Commis voyageur[4] I requested the editors of Das Volk[5] to reprint the original rigmarole without further comment. Despite this they followed the reprint with this note:

"The above rigmarole stems from the pen of a dissolute creature called Abt, who, eight years ago in Geneva, was unanimously found guilty of a variety of dishonourable actions by a court of honour of German refugees" (Das Volk, No. 6, June 11, 1859).

The editors of Das Volk took Abt for the author of Vogt's original rigmarole; they forgot that Switzerland had two Richmonds in the field[6], a Vogt, as well as an Abt.

In the spring of 1851, then, the "lowest of the low" invented the "Bristlers", whom Vogt pilfered from his Field Marshal in the autumn of 1859. The sweet habit of plagiarism acquired in making books on natural history instinctively clings to him in those dealing with his police activities. For a time the President of the Workers' Association in Geneva had been a brushmaker [Bürstenmacher] called Sauernheimer. Abt bisected Sauernheimer's profession and name, took the beginning of the former and the end of the latter and from the two halves thus obtained he ingeniously formed the whole: "Bürstenheimer" [Bristler]. This title he originally bestowed on Sauernheimer, as well as on his closest friends: Kamm from Bonn, a brushmaker by trade, and also Ranickel, a bookbinder's apprentice from Bingen. He appointed Sauernheimer general and Ranickel adjutant of the Bristlers, while Kamm became a Bristler sans phrase. Later, when two refugees belonging to the Workers' Association in Geneva, Imandt (who is at present professor at the college in Dundee) and Schily (a lawyer, formerly of Trier, now in Paris), brought about Abt's expulsion at the hands of a court of honour of the Association, Abt published an abusive pamphlet[7] in which he elevated the whole Workers' Association in Geneva to the rank of "Bristlers". It is clear, then, that there were Bristlers in general and Bristlers in particular. "Bristlers" in general included the Genevan Workers' Association, the same association which Vogt tricked into giving him a testimonium paupertatis which was published in the Allgemeine Zeitung[e] at a time when he had been driven into a corner, the same association on which he fawned during the celebrations in memory of Schiller and Robert Blum (1859). "Bristlers" in particular were, as I have mentioned, Sauernheimer, who is totally unknown to me and who has never been to London; Kamm who, having been turned out of Geneva, went to the United States via London, where he looked up Kinkel and not me; and finally Ranickel, or the Ranickel[f], who remained as the adjutant of the Bristlers in Geneva where he "congregated" around our "well-rounded character". And indeed, in his own person he represents the proletariat in Vogt's eyes. As I shall have more to say about the Ranickel later on, here are a few preliminary facts about the beast. Ranickel took part in Hecker's ill-starred campaign and after its defeat he joined the detachment of refugees under Willich in Besançon[8], Still under Willich he went through the campaign for the Imperial Constitution after which he fled with him to Switzerland. Willich was in his eyes the communist Mohammed who would bring about the millennium with fire and sword. A vain, long-winded, foppish melodramatic actor, the Ranickel was more tyrannical than the tyrant. In Geneva he raged in a red fury against the "parliamentarians" in general and, like a second Tell, against the "Land-Vogt" in particular, whom he threatened to "strangle". But when he was introduced to Vogt by Wallot, a refugee from the thirties and a boyhood friend of Vogt's, Ranickel's thirst for blood dissolved in the milk of human kindness[g]. "That fellow was the Vogt's," as Schiller says.[h]

The adjutant of the Bristlers became the adjutant of General Vogt, who has only failed to achieve military renown because Plon-Plon thought the Neapolitan captain Ulloa (another general by courtesy[i] bad enough for the task his "corps de touristes" had to perform in the Italian campaign, and so held his Parolles in reserve for the great adventure with "the lost drum" that will unfold on the Rhine[9]. In 1859 Vogt promoted his Ranickel from the proletariat to the middle classes, obtained a business for him (objets d'art, bookbinding and stationery) and in addition procured for him the custom of the Geneva Government. The adjutant of the Bristlers now became Vogt's "maid of all work"[j] his Cicisbeo, intimate friend, Leporello, confidant, correspondent, gossip-bearer and scandal-monger, but above all, after the Fall of our Fat Jack[k], he acted as his spy and as recruiting officer for Bonaparte among the workers. A Swiss paper recently reported the discovery of a third species of hedgehog, viz., the Ran or Rhine hedgehog [Ran- oder Rhein-Igel] which combines the qualities of both the canine and porcine varieties in itself and which has been found in a hole on the River Arve, the country-seat of Humboldt-Vogt. Was this Ran-Igel aimed at our Ranickel?

N.B. The only refugee in Geneva with whom I had any contact was Dr. Ernst Dronke, a former co-editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung[10] and at present a businessman in Liverpool. He was opposed to the activities of the "Bristlers".

The following letters from Imandt and Schily I would only preface with the remark that, on the outbreak of the revolution, Imandt left university in order to take part as a volunteer in the war in Schleswig-Holstein. In 1849 Schily and Imandt led the storming of the arsenal in Prüm[11] and from there they forced a passage to the Palatinate with their troops and the weapons they had seized. There they joined the ranks of the army of the Imperial Constitution. Having been expelled from Switzerland in the early summer of 1852 they made their way to London.

"Dundee, February 5, 1860

"Dear Marx,

"I am at a loss to understand how Vogt can attempt to connect you with affairs in Geneva. It was common knowledge among the refugees there that of all of us only Dronke was in communication with you. The Brimstone Gang was before my time and the only name I can recall in connection with it is Borkheim.

"The Bristlers were the Genevan Workers' Association. The name originated with Abt. At the time the Association served as nursery for Willich's secret league of which I was chairman. When, at my instigation, Abt was found by the Workers' Association, to which many refugees belonged, to be a scoundrel and unworthy to associate with refugees and workers, he published a lampoon shortly afterwards in which he accused Schily and myself of the absurdest crimes. Whereupon we revived the whole affair in a different place and before a completely different audience. He rejected our demand that he should come forward with proofs to hack up his libellous allegations, and without its being necessary for Schily or myself to say a word in our own defence, Dentzel proposed a motion that Abt be declared an infamous slanderer. The motion was approved unanimously for a second time, on this occasion by a meeting of refugees consisting almost entirely of parliamentarians. I am sorry that my tale is so very meagre, but it is the first time in eight years that I have had cause to think back to all that trash. I would not like to be condemned to write about it and I shall be most astonished if you can bring yourself to immerse your hand in such a brew.

"Adieu, Your Imandt"

A well-known Russian writer[12] who had been on very friendly terms with Herr Vogt during his stay in Geneva, wrote to me very much along the lines of the concluding words of the above letter:

"Paris, 10 Mai 1860

"Mon cher Marx!

"J'ai appris avec la plus vive indignation les calomnies qui ont été répandues sur votre compte et dont j'ai eu connaissance par un article de la Revue contemporaine, signé Édouard Simon[13], Ce qui m'a particulièrement étonné c'est que Vogt, que je ne croyais ni bête, ni méchant, aît pu tomber dans l'abaissement moral que sa brochure révèle. Je n'avais besoin d'aucun témoignage pour être assuré, que vous étiez incapable de basses et sales intrigues, et il m'a été d'autant plus pénible de lire ces diffamations que dans le moment même où on les imprimait, vous donniez au monde savant la première partie du beau travail[14] qui doit renouveler la science économique et la fonder sur des nouvelles et plus solides bases... Mon cher Marx, ne vous occupez plus de toutes ces misères; tous les hommes sérieux, tous les hommes consciencieux sont pour vous, mais ils attendent de vous autre chose que des polémiques stériles; ils voudraient pouvoir étudier le plus tôt possible la continuation de votre belle œuvre.—Votre succés est immense parmi les hommes pensants et s'il vous peut être agréable d'apprendre le retentissement que vos doctrines trouvent en Russie, je vous dirai qu'au commencement de cette année le professeur—[15] a fait à Moscovie un cours public d'économie politique dont la première leçon n'a pas été autre chose que la paraphrase de votre récente publication[16]. Je vous adresse un numéro de La Gazette du Nord, où vous verrez combien votre nom est estimé dans mon pays. Adieu, mon cher Marx, conservez-vous en bonne sauté et travaillez comme par le passé, a éclairer le monde, sans vous préoccuper des petites bêtises et des petites lâchetés. Croyez à l'amitié de votre dévoué..."[17]

Szemere, the former Hungarian Minister, also wrote to me in similar vein:

"Vaut-il la peine que vous vous occupiez de toutes ces bavardises?"[18]

I have briefly indicated in the Preface my reasons for immersing my hand in Vogt's brew (to use Imandt's forceful expression) despite these and similar attempts at dissuasion. To return to our Bristlers. The following letter from Schily is printed here verbatim, not even omitting the parts that do not refer to "nos moutons". I have however shortened the description of the Brimstone Gang since it would merely repeat what we already know from Borkheim's account, and certain other passages have been saved for later as I must to some extent treat "my agreeable subject" artistically and not blurt all my secrets out at once.

"Paris, February 8, 1860 46 Rue Lafayette

"Dear Marx,

"It was very agreeable to have a direct sign of life from you in the shape of your letter of January 31[19] and you will find me all the more ready to give you the information you require about these episodes in Geneva as I intended to write to you about them proprio motu[20]. The first thing that struck me, and not only me but also all my Geneva acquaintances here with whom I had occasion to discuss the matter, was that Vogt, as you write, lumps you together with people who are quite unknown to you. And so, in the interests of the truth, I had taken upon myself the task of conveying to you the relevant information about the 'Bristlers', the 'Brimstone Gang', etc. So you can see that both your questions: '(1) Who were the Bristlers and what were their activities? and (2) What was the Brimstone Gang, who belonged to it, what did they do?' came at a very opportune moment. I must begin by pointing out, however, that you are guilty of an error in chronology, for priority belongs by rights to the Brimstone Gang. If it was Vogt's wish 'to have a bit of fun' and terrify the German philistines by conjuring up the devil or even by calling down fire and brimstone on their heads, he should have found rather more diabolical figures for his models than those harmless and jolly ale-house geniuses to whom we, the senior members of the Geneva emigration, used to refer jokingly and without any unfriendly ulterior motive as the Brimstone Gang, a title which they too accepted in good part. They were the merry sons of the Muses who had taken their examina and done their exercitia practica in the various South German putsches, finishing up in the campaign for the Imperial Constitution. After the failure they were gathering strength in Geneva in the company of their examiners and instructors in revolution for the time when business would be resumed.... It is obvious that anyone who either was never in Geneva or arrived there after the dissolution of the Gang could not have belonged to it. It was a purely local and ephemeral flora (a brimstone flora would be the right name for this corrosive substance), though probably because of the Rummeltipuff with its whiffs of revolution, it proved to have too strong a scent for Federal Swiss nerves. For Druey blew and the flower was scattered to the winds. It was not until a considerable period had elapsed that Abt came to Geneva, followed a few years later by Cherval, and while both of them smelled, 'each in his own way', it was not, as Vogt alleges, in that forgotten bouquet which had long since wilted and been torn apart.

"The activities of the Gang may be more or less summed up in the words: toiling in the vineyard of the Lord[21]. In addition they edited the Rummeltipuff with its motto: 'Dwell in the land and thrive on red wine!'[22] In it they exercised their wit and humour on everything under the sun: they denounced false prophets, flayed the parliamentarians (inde irae[23]), and spared neither themselves nor us, their audience, but caricatured everyone whether friend or foe with an admirable conscientiousness and impartiality.

"I do not need to tell you that they had no connection with you and never wore your Bundschuh[24] Nor can I conceal from you the fact that that footwear would have been little to their taste. These soldiers of the revolution were for the time being lounging around in the slippers of the armistice until the revolution itself would reanimate them and re-equip them with its own buskin (the seven-league boots of resolute progress)[25], And anyone who had been so bold as to disturb their siesta with Marxist political economy, workers' dictatorship, etc., would have been given a very cool reception indeed. For Heaven knows, the work they did required nothing further than a Master of Ceremonies and their economic researches were confined almost entirely to the 'jug' and its reddish contents. One of their members, Backfisch, an honest farrier from the Odenwald, once expressed the opinion that 'the right to work was all very well, but the duty to work was one he would prefer to be spared....'

"Let us then replace the sacrilegiously abused tombstone of the Brimstone Gang. To prevent any further desecration of their grave a Hafiz should be employed to sing the requiescat in pace[26]. But, failing that, may they herewith accept this obituary pro viatico et epitaphio[27]: 'They knew the smell of powder.' Whereas their sacrilegious historiographer has merely managed to smell out brimstone.

"The Bristlers first emerged at a time when the Brimstone Gang only lived on verbally in legend, in the records of Genevan philistines and the hearts of Genevan beauties. The brushmakers and bookbinders, Sauernheimer, Kamm, Ranickel, etc., came into conflict with Abt. When Imandt, myself and others resolutely took their side we too became the targets of his hostility. Abt was then summoned to appear before a general assembly of refugees and members of the Workers' Association, combined to form a cour des pairs[28] or a haute cour de justice[29]. Abt did in fact appear and not only failed to provide proof of the accusations he had hurled at various people, but even declared quite openly that he had made them up quite arbitrarily, as reprisals for just as arbitrary accusations that his enemies had levelled at him: 'Tit for tat, reprisals make the world go round!'—washis view of the matter. Having made a valiant plea for his system of tit for tat, thoroughly convincing the noble peers of the great practical advantages to be derived from it, and after proofs of the accusations against him had been brought, he was declared to have confessed his malicious slanders, was found guilty of the other misdeeds imputed to him and was formally outlawed. In revenge he christened the noble peers, originally only the above-named guild-members, the 'Bürstenheimers' [Bristlers], which, as you see, is a happy combination of the trade and name of the first-named. You should revere him, therefore, as the progenitor of the family of Bürstenheim, without however your being in a position to claim to be one of or related to the clan, whether the term is applied to the guild or the peerage. For you ought to know that those of them that did busy themselves with 'organising the revolution' did so not as your supporters but as your opponents. They revered Willich as God the Father or as their Pope and anathematised you as the Antichrist or antipope, so that Dronke, who was regarded as your only supporter and legatus a latere[30] in the diocese of Geneva, was excluded from all councils of the Church except the oenological ones, where he was primus inter pares. But the Bristlers, like the Brimstone Gang, were the merest Ephemeridae, and Druey had only to give one mighty puff and they scattered in all directions.

"The fact that a pupil of Agassiz[31] should have got involved in these fossils of the Geneva emigration and have unearthed such fantastic tales as those served up in his pamphlet is the more astonishing since as regards the species of Bristleriana he actually possesses a perfect specimen in his own zoological cabinet in the shape of a mastodon of the order of ruminants: Ranickel, the very prototype of the Bristler. So the rumination seems to have been imperfectly performed, or else not properly studied by the above-mentioned pupil....

"There you have all you asked for et au delà[32]. But now I too should like to ask you something, namely your opinion about the wisdom of introducing an inheritance tax pro patria, vulgo: for the state. It would form the state's principal source of income, eliminate the taxes which at present burden the poorer classes and of course would only apply in cases of sizeable estates.... Besides this inheritance tax I am interested in two German institutions: !the consolidation of landed property' and 'mortgage insurance', institutions which I wish were better appreciated in this country. At the present time they are not at all understood, for the French in general, with but few exceptions, when they gaze across the Rhine see nothing but nebulosities and sauerkraut. An exception was provided recently by L'Univers[33] which, after lamenting immoderately about the fragmentation of landed property, added quite correctly: 'Il serait désirable qu'on appliquât immédiatement les remèdes énergiques, dont une partie de l'Allemagne s'est servie avec avantage: le remaniement obligatoire des propriétés partout où les 0.7 des propriétaires d'une commune réclament cette mesure. La nouvelle répartition facilitera le drainage, l'irrigation, la culture rationelle et la voirie des propriétés.'[34] On top of this comes Le Siècle which is in general somewhat myopic, but which is completely blind when it comes to consider German affairs, thanks to a chauvinism which it displays as proudly as Diogenes showed off his threadbare cloak—it serves up this stuff, disguised as patriotism, daily to its subscribers. This chauvinist, then, having fired off the obligatory salvo at L'Univers, its bête noire, went on to say: 'Propriétaires ruraux, suivez ce conseil! Empressez-vous de réclamer le remaniement obligatoire des propriétés; dépouillez les petits au profit des grands. O fortunatos nimium agricolas—trop heureux habitants des campagnes—sua si bona—s'ils connaissaient l'avantage à remanier obligatoirement la propriété.'[35] As if the large landowners could out-vote the smallholders where each man had a vote.

"For the rest I let God's water flow freely over His land, give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's[36], and even 'the Devil's share'[37], and remain your old affectionate friend,

Schily"

It follows from the foregoing that as there existed a "Brimstone Gang" in Geneva in 1849-50, and an association called the "Bristlers" in 1851-52, two societies connected neither with each other nor with myself, the revelations of our parliamentary clown about the existence of the "Brimstone Gang or Bristlers" are flesh of his flesh, a lie to the fourth power, "like the father that begets it: gross as a mountain, open, palpable"[38]. Just imagine a historian shameless enough to report: At the time of the first French Revolution there was a group of people known by the name of the "Cercle social"[39] or else by the no less characteristic title of "Jacobins".

As regards the life and deeds of the "Brimstone Gang or Bristlers" that he concocted, our merry joker was careful to keep the costs of their production down to a minimum. I shall give but a single instance of this:

"One of the chief occupations of the Brimstone Gang," the well-rounded one informs his astounded audience of philistines, "was to compromise people at home in Germany. in such a way that they were forced to pay money and no longer resist the attempts to blackmail them" (a fine how-do-you-do[40]; "they were forced to no longer resist the attempts to blackmail them"), "in exchange for which the gang should preserve the secret of their having been compromised. Not just one letter, but hundreds were written to Germany by these men" (namely Vogt's homunculi) "and all of them contained the naked threat that the person in question would be denounced for complicity in this or that act of revolution unless a certain sum of money had been received at a specified address by a given date" ("Magnum Opus", p. 139).

Why did Vogt fail to print even "one" of these letters? Because the "Brimstone Gang" wrote "hundreds" of them. If threatening letters were as plentiful as blackberries[41] Vogt would swear that we should have no threatening letter. If he were summoned to appear tomorrow before a court of honour of the Grütli Association[42] to give an account of the "hundreds" of "threatening letters", he would instead of producing a single letter pull a bottle of wine from his jerkin, smack his lips, cock a snook and with a great belly-laugh worthy of Silenus, he would exclaim like his Abt: "Tit for tat, reprisals make the world go round."

  1. ↑ Henry IV, Part I, Act III, Scene 3. Marx quotes in English.—Ed.
  2. ↑ Carl Vogt, Mein Prozess..., S. 31, 136.—Ed.
  3. ↑ Charles Fourier, Théorie de l'unité universelle. Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 2, Paris, 1843, pp. 78-79, and Vol. 5, Paris, 1841, pp. 213-14.—Ed.
  4. ↑ Marx means Karl Vogt's article "Zur Warnung" in the Schweizer Handels-Courier, No. 150 (special supplement), June 2, 1859.—Ed.
  5. ↑ Das Volk—a German-language weekly published in London from May 7 to August 20, 1859—was founded as the official organ of the German Workers' Educational Society in London. The first issue appeared under the editorship of the German journalist Elard Biscamp, a petty-bourgeois democrat. Beginning with issue No. 2 Marx took an active part in its publication: he gave advice to the editors, edited articles himself and organised material support. In issue No. 6 of June 11, the Editorial Board officially named Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Wilhelm Wolff and Heinrich Heise as its contributors (see MECW, Vol. 16, p. 624). Marx's first article in the paper—"Spree and Mincio"—was printed on June 25. Under Marx's influence Das Volk began to turn into a militant revolutionary working-class newspaper. In the beginning of July, Marx became its virtual editor and manager.Das Volk carried Marx's preface to his work A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, six of his articles, including the unfinished series Quid pro Quo, seven articles by Engels and his review of Marx's Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, and reviews of the Hermann, the newspaper of the German petty-bourgeois democrats, by Marx and Biscamp (they appeared in the column "Gatherings from the Press"). Furthermore, many articles and political reviews written by different authors were edited by Marx. In all, sixteen issues appeared. Das Volk ceased publication for lack of money. Articles published in Das Volk reflected the elaboration by Marx and Engels of questions of revolutionary theory and the tactics of proletarian struggle, covered the class battles of the proletariat and implacably combated petty-bourgeois ideology. From a position of proletarian internationalism the newspaper analysed the course of the Austro-Italo-French war of 1859 and the issues involved in the unification of Germany and Italy, exposed the foreign policy of Britain, Prussia, France, Russia and other reactionary states and waged a consistent struggle against Bonapartism and its overt and covert supporters.
  6. ↑ Two Richmonds in the field is an expression used to denote a second, unexpected adversary. It originates from Shakespeare's Richard III (Act V, Scene 4).
  7. ↑ This presumably refers to Abt's pamphlet Carl Vogt und Carl Marx oder die Bürstenheimer, Leipzig, Heidelberg. A notice in No. 27 (July 5, 1861) of the Stimmen der Zeit. Wochenschrift für Politik und Literatur, a weekly published by Adolph Kolatschek, said that the pamphlet would be published in the supplement to No. 39, and contained the following editorial note: "The work in question reached the editor as early as January of this year. The delay in publication is by no means due to any fault on the part of the author."It is possible that friends had forwarded the manuscript of the pamphlet to Marx.
  8. ↑ In April 1848 a republican uprising took place in Baden. Led by the petty-bourgeois democrats Friedrich Hecker and Gustav Struve, it started with republican detachments invading Baden from Switzerland. The uprising was poorly organised and was crushed by the end of April.Later some participants in the Baden uprising joined the unit formed by August Willich from German émigré workers and artisans in Besançon, France, in November 1848. Its members received allowances from the French Government, payment of which was, however, discontinued at the beginning of 1849. Later the unit was incorporated in Willich's volunteer detachment which took part in the Baden-Palatinate uprising in May-June 1849.
  9. ↑ The great adventure with "the lost drum" is Marx's ironic way of referring to the manoeuvres of Napoleon III and the Bonapartist circles in France aimed at capturing the left bank of the Rhine. Vogt supported these manoeuvres in the press. Marx compares them to a comic episode in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well (Act III, Scenes 5 and 6, Act IV, Scenes 1 and 3). By Parolles Vogt is meant.
  10. ↑ The Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ der Democratie appeared in Cologne daily from June 1, 1848 to May 19, 1849. The editorial board included Karl Marx (Editor-in-Chief), Heinrich Bürgers, Ernst Dronke, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Georg Weerth, Wilhelm Wolff, Ferdinand Wolff and Frederick Engels.The Neue Rheinische Zeitung was founded by Marx as a militant periodical intended to exert a direct influence on the masses, educate and unite them politically and ideologically and pave the way for the creation of a mass party of the German proletariat. As a rule, Marx and Engels wrote the editorials, formulating the paper's stand on the key questions of the revolution. The consistent revolutionary tendency of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, its active internationalism and its attacks on the government, aroused the displeasure of the bourgeois shareholders and led to the persecution of its editors by the authorities and a smear campaign in the feudal monarchist and liberal bourgeois press. It was particularly the paper's articles in defence of the June 1848 uprising of the Paris proletariat that frightened away the shareholders. Persecution of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung editors by the judicial authorities and the police became particularly severe after the counter-revolutionary coup in Prussia in November-December 1848.In May 1849, under the conditions of the general counter-revolutionary offensive, the Prussian Government expelled Marx from Prussia on the pretext that he was not a Prussian citizen. Marx's expulsion and new repressive measures against other editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung resulted in the paper ceasing publication. The last issue, No. 301, printed in red ink, appeared on May 19, 1849. In their farewell address "To the Workers of Cologne", the editors wrote that "their last word everywhere and always will be emancipation of the working class".
  11. ↑ The arsenal in Prüm was stormed by democrats and workers from Trier and neighbouring townships on May 17 and 18, 1849. Their aim was to seize the arms and extend the uprising in defence of the Imperial Constitution to the left bank of the Rhine. The insurgents succeeded in capturing the arsenal, but government troops soon arrived on the scene and the movement was suppressed.
  12. ↑ Nikolai Ivanovich Sazonov.—Ed.
  13. ↑ "Un tableau de moeurs politiques en Allemagne. Le procès de M. Vogt avec la gazette d'Augsbourg", Revue contemporaine, February 15, 1860.—Ed.
  14. ↑ The reference is to Marx's work A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (MECW, Vol. 30).—Ed.
  15. ↑ Ivan Kondratyevich Babst.—Ed.
  16. ↑ Sazonov obviously had in mind Professor I. K. Babst, who had given a series of lectures in political economy in Moscow. An account of the first lecture was published in the Moskovskiye vedomosti, No. 19, January 24, 1860. In Sazonov's opinion, this lecture reflected some of the ideas contained in the Preface of Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.
  17. ↑ "My dear Marx, I have learnt with the greatest indignation of the slanders that have been circulated about you and of which I was apprised by an article in the Revue contemporaine signed by Édouard Simon. What has astonished me most of all is that Vogt whom I thought to be neither stupid nor malicious should have morally sunk so low as his pamphlet reveals. I need no evidence to persuade me that you are incapable of base and sordid intrigues and it was all the more painful to read these slanders when, at the very moment they were being printed, you were presenting to the learned world the first part of the admirable work which will give new life to the science of economics and provide it with new and more solid foundations.... My dear Marx, you must ignore all this wretched pettiness; all serious men, all scrupulous men are on your side, but they expect something other than sterile polemics from you; they would like to study the continuation of your admirable work as soon as possible.—Among thinking men your success is enormous, and if it gives you pleasure to hear of the echo your works have found in Russia, I can tell you that at the beginning of this year Professor— gave a course of public lectures on political economy in Moscow, the first hour of which was nothing but a paraphrase of your recent publication. I am sending you an issue of La Gazette du Nord from which you will be able to see how high your reputation stands in my country. Adieu, my dear Marx, keep in good health and labour as in the past for the enlightenment of the world, without concerning yourself with petty stupidities and petty acts of cowardly malice. I remain your devoted friend...."—Ed.
  18. ↑ "Is it really worth your while to bother your head with all this tittle-tattle?" (From Szemere's letter of February 5, 1860)—Ed.
  19. ↑ Marx's letter to Schily dated January 31 is not available.—Ed.
  20. ↑ Of my own accord.—Ed.
  21. ↑ Matthew 20:4.—Ed.
  22. ↑ A pun on Psalm 37:3. Proverbia (in German): "Dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed" (lit. "feed thyself honestly" in Luther's version). Schily replaced redlich (honestly) with rötlich, literally "reddishly".—Ed.
  23. ↑ Hence the outcry (Juvenal, Satires, Book I, Satire 1).—Ed.
  24. ↑ The Bundschuh was a secret revolutionary peasant union active in Germany on the eve of the Peasant War of 1525. Schily uses the name to designate the Communist League, led by Marx and Engels.
  25. ↑ An allusion to the Club of Resolute Progress. Founded in Karlsruhe on June 5, 1848, it represented the more radical wing of the petty-bourgeois democratic republicans (Struve, Tzschirner, Heinzen and others) discontented with the conciliatory policy of the Brentano government and the increasing strength of the Rightist elements within it. The Club suggested that Brentano should extend the revolution beyond Baden and the Palatinate and introduce radicals into the government. Brentano refused, so the Club tried, on June 6, to force the government's hand by threatening an armed demonstration. The government, however, supported by the civic militia and other armed units, proved the stronger party in the conflict. The Club of Resolute Progress was disbanded.
  26. ↑ Rest in peace. Psalms 4:9.—Ed.
  27. ↑ For their extreme unction and epitaph.—Ed.
  28. ↑ Court of peers.—Ed.
  29. ↑ High court.—Ed.
  30. ↑ Cardinal, emissary. Dronke was sent to Switzerland as an emissary of the Communist League in the summer of 1850.—Ed.
  31. ↑ Vogt had been an assistant to the Swiss naturalist Agassiz.—Ed.
  32. ↑ And more besides.—Ed.
  33. ↑ The full title of the newspaper is L'Univers réligieux, philosophique, politique, scientifique et littéraire.—Ed.
  34. ↑ "It would be desirable that energetic remedies be introduced immediately, such as those that have proved so successful in part of Germany: the compulsory reorganisation of land holdings wherever it is demanded by 0.7 of the owners in a community. The new distribution of land would facilitate drainage, irrigation, the rational exploitation of the land and the planning of roads."—Ed.
  35. ↑ "Rural landowners, follow this advice! Hasten to demand the compulsory reorganisation of land holdings; rob the small owners to enrich the large ones. O fortunatos nimium agricolas—too happy country-dwellers—sua si bona—if they only knew the advantages of the compulsory reorganisation of land holdings." (The Latin expression quoted here is a paraphrase from Virgil's poem Georgies.)—Ed.
  36. ↑ Matthew 22: 21.—Ed.
  37. ↑ Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene 2.—Ed.
  38. ↑ ibid., Act II, Scene 4.—Ed.
  39. ↑ Cercle social—an organisation established by democratic intellectuals in Paris in the first years of the French Revolution. Its chief spokesmen, Claude Fauchet and Nicolas Bonneville, demanded the egalitarian division of the land, restrictions on large fortunes and employment for all able-bodied citizens.
  40. ↑ Here Marx has "auch eine schöne Gegend", i.e. "a beautiful landscape too". The phrase originated from a story about a woman who, trying to console the mother of a soldier killed at the Battle of Leipzig (1813), said: "But it was a beautiful landscape."
  41. ↑ Adaptation of Falstaff's "if reasons were as plentiful as blackberries" (Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene 4).—Ed.
  42. ↑ The Grütli Association (Grütliverein) was a Swiss petty-bourgeois reformist organisation founded in 1838 as an educational society for artisans and workers. The name Grütliverein was to emphasise the Swiss national character of the association. Legend has it that in 1307 representatives of three Swiss cantons met in Grütli meadow and formed an alliance to fight against the arbitrary rule of the Austrian governors (Vogts). Hence Marx's ironic reference to Karl Vogt.
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