Letter to Bertalan Szemere, June 2, 1860

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MARX TO BERTALAN SZEMERE

IN PARIS

[London,] 2 June 1860

My dear Sir,

My protracted silence was owed to two circumstances. On my return from Manchester I was overwhelmed with business. Afterward, I fell sick. I am still under medical treatment and little apt for writing.

As to your affair with Mr Engels, the delay was caused by a second sudden departure for Germany having become necessary on his part. On his return for Manchester he passed through London and told me that he would immediately settle the little bill. He regretted not having been able to prove more useful to you, but had not thought of charging you with the expenses incurred by the sending back of the wines.

I have read your book with much pleasure and profit. I concur in the main views you take of the conditions necessary for the restoration of Hungary, but I dissent from the apology passed on Bonaparte and Palmerston. The latter has, in 1848-9, betrayed Hungary, as well as Italy. He had before acted in the same way in regard to Poland; he, afterwards, treated in the same way Circassia. He is still what he was since 1829—a Russian agent, bound to the Petersburg cabinet by ties it is not in his power to cut through. Russia, of course, wants the destruction of the Austrian Empire, but what she not wants is the formation of the constituent elements of that empire into independent and self-sustaining states. A true reconstitution of Hungary would even more stand in the way of Russian Eastern diplomacy than tottering, vacillating and frightened Austria. I should have wished, in your own interest, and that of your country, that you had not reprinted the memorial to Palmerston, not spoken of the true interest of Russia, and avoided even alluding to the dismemberment of Turkey. As it is, you have estranged exactly that portion of English politicians which was most willing to do you justice, and was least influenced by Kossuth's sycophants. (Kossuth has in these latter times given out—through his agents—and even succeeded in forcing the opinion into some weekly papers, that you were intriguing against him, because he was a Republican, in principle at least, while you belonged to the 'Constitutional and Aristocratic party'.)

You excuse the liberty I have taken in frankly stating the points on which I cannot but dissent from you. The interest I take in your writings and your doings will, I hope, serve as a sufficient excuse. When will you come again over to London?

Yours truly

A. Williams

A propos. Perczel answered me in a letter in which he acknowledges the truth of the somewhat eccentric compliments I showered upon him, but at the same time very politely declines giving the explanations asked for. His letter seems written in a rather melancholic, melodramatic, and depressed mood of mind.

As a curiosity I may still tell you that a Professor at the University of Moscow has held, during the past winter, a lecture on the first part of the 'criticism of political economy' published by myself.