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Special pages :
Letter to Karl Schapper, February 27, 1860
| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 27 February 1860 |
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41
MARX TO KARL SCHAPPER
IN LONDON
[Draft]
Manchester, 27 February 1860
6 Thorncliffe Grove, Oxford Road
Dear Schapper,
I have written to Liebknecht asking him to let you have a look at Vogt's book,a so that you can see for yourself how important the Berlin lawsuit against the National-Zeitung (the one against the Telegraph[1] is secondary) is to the historical vindication of our party and its subsequent position in Germany. Yesterday I had a letter from my lawyer in Berlin from which I gather that Mr Zabel of the National-Zeitung will probably atone for his pro-Vogtian zeal by becoming intimately acquainted with the interior of a penal establishment. My lawyer thinks it important that you should make the following affidavit,[2] as soon as possible, or one along similar lines, before a London magistrate (the one in Bow Street is our man; he already knows Liebknecht, who could go with you):
- 'I declare herewith, that, in the year, etc., Cherval (alias Cramer, etc.) was introduced by myself into the London Branch of the German friendly society called "Der Bund" (the Union)[3] (a society, by the by, which has ceased to exist long time since); that in etc. 1848 the said passed through Cologne where he had a short interview with me, which I did not even mention to Dr Karl Marx. Cherval being an individual utterly unknown to Dr K. M.; that in 1851/52 during his stay at Paris, Cherval belonged to, and corresponded with that branch of the German friendly society called "Der Bund" which at the time was directed by myself and Mr Willich, now living at Cincinnati, U. St.; that, during the autumn of 1852, after his return from Paris to London, Cherval entered the public German Working-men's Society, called "Der Arbeiterbildungsverein", of which he had formerly been a member and which, at the time, was directed by myself and the above said Mr Willich; that consequent upon the revelations publicly made at Cologne against Cherval during the trial of[4] Dr Becker[5] and others, and upon other information derived from other sources, the said Cherval was publicly expulsed from the German Workmen Club above named, and, soon after, disappeared from London.'*
Engels sends you his kindest regards; he will, by the by, be coming down to London himself sometime in the spring. I beg you to lose no time.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
In the affidavit mention is made of a 'FRIENDLY SOCIETY', this being the sort of thing that doesn't sound at all suspect to an English magistrate; besides, you can interpret FRIENDLY SOCIETY in any way you wish.
- ↑ The Daily Telegraph - J. M. Weber
- ↑ As can be seen from Marx's Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17, p. 266) Schapper took out an affidavit to this effect at the Police Court at Bow Street on 1 March 1860.
- ↑ This refers to the Communist League, the first German and international communist organisation of the proletariat, formed under the leadership of Marx and Engels in London early in June 1847 as a result of the reorganisation of the League of the Just. The programme and organisational principles of the Communist League were drawn up with the direct participation of Marx and Engels. League members took an active part in the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Germany in 1848-49. After the defeat of the revolution, the League was reorganised and continued its activities. In the summer of 1850, differences arose between the supporters of Marx and Engels and the sectarian Willich-Schapper group, which tried to impose its adventurist tactics of immediately unleashing a revolution regardless of the existing conditions and practical possibilities. The discord led to a split within the League in September 1850. Because of police persecution and arrests of League members, the activities of the League as an organisation virtually ceased in Germany in May 1851. On 17 November 1852, on a motion by Marx, the League's London District announced the dissolution of the League (see this volume, pp. 72, 82-84).
- ↑ See this volume, p. 77.
- ↑ Hermann Becker