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Special pages :
Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, September 1, 1870
Extract published in Marx and Engels Correspondence; International Publishers (1968);
Published in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44
To Friedrich Adolph Sorge in Hoboken
London, 1 September 1870[edit source]
1 Maitland Park Road,
Haverstock Hill
Dear Mr Sorge,
My continued silence in the face of your several letters was due to two circumstances: at first ‘OVERWORK’, later very serious illness. At the beginning of August the doctors sent me to the seaside.53 But there a severe attack of SCIATICA bent me double for weeks. I have been back in London only since yesterday, by no means fully recovered.
First of all, my best thanks for what you have sent me, especially the LABOR STATISTICS[1] which are of great value to me.
Now I shall briefly answer the questions in your various letters. Hume was empowered to carry on propaganda among the Yankees, but has exceeded his powers. I shall submit the matter to the General Council next Tuesday, with an EXHIBITION of his ‘cards’.
As for the ‘secretaryship’ for the UNITED STATES, the matter is as follows: I am secretary for the German BRANCHES over there, Dupont for the French, and lastly Eccarius for the Yankees and the English-speaking part of the branches. In our public DECLARATIONS, therefore, Eccarius figured as ‘SECRETARY FOR THE UNITED STATES’. Otherwise we should have to employ useless circumlocutions. I, for instance, would also have to sign as ‘Secretary for the Russian branche’ in Geneva, and so on. Moreover, Eccarius himself plainly set forth the state of affairs in a New York PAPER—in connection with Cluseret.
Next week I shall send you a new pack of CARDS OF MEMBERSHIP.
The miserable behaviour of Paris during the war--still allowing itself to be ruled by the mamelukes of Louis Bonaparte and of the Spanish adventuress Eugenie[2] after these appalling defeats--shows how greatly the French need a tragic lesson in order to regain their manhood.
What the Prussian fools do not see is that the present war is leading just as inevitably to a war between Germany and Russia as the war of 1866 led to the war between Prussia and France. That is the best result I expect from it for Germany. Typical "Prussianism" never has had and never can have any existence except in alliance with and subjection to Russia. And a war No. 2 of this kind will act as the midwife to the inevitable social revolution in Russia.
I regret that some misunderstanding on the part of my friend Vogt which is incomprehensible to me has led to a wrong opinion regarding Schily. Schily is not only one of my oldest and most intimate personal friends; he is one of the ablest, most courageous, and most reliable members of the Party.
I am very glad that Meyer is going to Cincinnati as a delegate. Most faithfully yours,
Karl Marx
I should like to have a look at the Kellogg money nonsense (merely a variety of Bray, Gray, Bronterre O’Brien, etc., in England and of Proudhon in France) in the original.90 The stuff cannot be obtained here.