Preface to Marx-Engels Collected Works Volume (45)

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Karl Marx’s and Frederick Engels’ letters from 1874 to 1879, contained in this volume, provide an unrivalled source for the history of the working-class movement and Marxist theory after the Paris Commune (1871), a period in which Marx also wrote his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Engels his Anti-Diihring (1876-78), and both of them together wrote their Circular Letter (1879) to the leading German Social-Democrats.

At the centre of Marx’s studies during this period was his economic theory, mainly the questions examined in the second and third volumes of Capital, and his letters give us an idea of the ever broader range of sources he used in his examination of the economic development of bourgeois society. From Russia and the United States he received piles of printed matter on the agrarian problem, finance, trade, and industrial growth. Lamenting the loss in the mail of a large parcel of books sent from Russia, Marx wrote to Pyotr Lavrov that it contained ‘things that were absolutely essential to the chapter in the second volume in which I deal with landownership, etc., in Russia’ (see this volume, p. 58).

Marx followed closely the worldwide economic crisis of the 1870s, comparing its development in various countries, and comparing it with other crises of the 19th century. This, he wrote, was most important ‘for the student of capitalistic production’ (p. 355). Marx let his correspondents know he was compelled to delay completion of the subsequent volumes of Capital. Thus he wrote to Nikolai Danielson, a translator of Capital into Russian: ‘1 should under no circumstances have published the second volume before the present English industrial crisis had reached its climax’ (p. 354).

Marx’s studies of the 1870s reaffirmed his judgement of joint-stock companies in the manuscript of the third volume of Capital (1863-65) as a new form of concentrating and centralising capital. In the same letter to Danielson, he wrote that large joint-stock companies in British, Belgian, French, and US communications and banking gave ‘an impetus never before suspected to the concentration of capital and also to the accelerated and immensely enlarged cosmopolitan activity of loanable capital’ (p. 356).

Marx’s letters of this period often refer to his preparation of new editions of the first volume of Capital, notably its French translation, for which he made many important changes.

Marx’s letters show the importance he attached to popular versions of the first volume of Capital. He wrote to Friedrich Adolph Sorge on 14 June 1876 that at Wilhelm Liebknecht’s request he had taken part in preparing the second edition of Johann Most’s pamphlet, Kapital und Arbeit. Ein populärer Auszug aus ‘Das Kapital’ von Karl Marx, and eliminated its most substantial faults. He had not put his name to it, however, ‘because I should then have had to make even more alterations (I had to delete the bits about value, money, wages and much else, and substitute things of my own)’ (p. 125).

Marx commended the popular pamphlet by the Italian socialist Carlo Cafiero, issued in Milan in 1879, Il Capitale di Carlo Marx, though he did reprimand the author for failing to show in the preface that ‘the material conditions indispensable to the emancipation of the proletariat are engendered in spontaneous fashion by the progress of capitalist production’. Marx also advised Cafiero to pay closer attention in the next edition of his pamphlet to the method of research he, Marx, had used in Capital (p. 366).

The letters also illustrate in detail the intensive research Frederick Engels undertook, notably for his Dialectics of Nature and Anti-Diihring. Engels had gathered material for the former for many years, setting out to show ‘that in nature, amid the welter of innumerable changes, the same dialectical laws of motion force their way through as those which in history govern the apparent fortuitousness of events’ (see present edition, Vol. 25, p. 11). Engels’ letters reveal that Dialectics of Nature reflects his discussion of certain theoretical points with his correspondents during this period. His letter to Pyotr Lavrov of 12[-17] November 1875, for example, is repeated almost verbatim in a passage of his manuscript. Setting forth his attitude to Darwinism as a whole, Engels examined the theory of the development of the organic world from the dialectico-materialist angle. He called attention to the limitations of Darwin’s ‘struggle for existence’ formula, and proved that the laws of the animal world should not be applied to human society, as w s done by the social Darwinians, whom Engels called bourgec‘ Darwinians (pp. 106-07).

However, in the summer of 1876 Engels shifted his attention to a more urgent task, that of countering the eclectic petty-bourgeois views of Eugen Dühring which were spreading fast in the socialist movement.

Dühring’s doctrine, which professed to be an all-encompassing system of economic, philosophic and socialist views, was influencing some socialists not only inside but also outside Germany.

The idea that action against Dühring had to be taken came from Wilhelm Liebknecht. Informing Engels of the spread of Dühring’s ideas, he wrote on 16 May 1876 that measures should be taken at once to refute them.

Marx and Engels agreed that the situation called for action. Their letters reflect concern and understanding of the objective need for a comprehensive and integral rendering of their own doctrine. On 25 May 1876 Marx wrote to Engels that he considered Dühring should be criticised ‘without any compunction’ (p. 119). Three days later, Engels let him know of what he proposed to do (pp. 122-23).

The volume contains a number of letters showing how and why Engels wrote Anti-Dühring. Some of Engels’ letters refer directly to his work on the book, namely to the subject of public property in bourgeois society (p. 308) and to social Darwinism, which he discussed in his letter to Lavrov of 12[-17] November 1875. On 19 July 1878, sending a copy of Anti-Dühring to the German zoologist Oscar Schmidt, Engels wrote that in his work he had endeavoured, among other things, to give an outline ‘of the relation of scientific socialism to the propositions of modern theoretical natural science in general, and to Darwin’s theory in particular’ (p. 313).

Marx participated. in the work on Anti-Dühring. He helped Engels pick out material for some of the chapters, read the manuscript from beginning to end and wrote a critical outline of Dühring’s views on the history of economic doctrines, which was used by Engels as the basis for Chapter X of Part II.

Engels gave two years of his life to this book, published as Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science an d popularly known as Anti-Diihring. It provided the first ever comprehensive presentation of Marxism as an integral, indivisible science.

Much of Marx’s and Engels’ attention in this period was turned to the change in the organisational forms of working-class unity. In 1874 the International had in fact ceased to function, though it was not officially disbanded until 1876. In a letter to Sorge in September 1874, Engels wrote: ‘The old International is entirely wound up and at an end... It belonged to the period ... when the common, cosmopolitan interests of the proletariat could come to the fore... For ten years the International dominated one side of European history—the side on which the future lies... But in its old form it has outlived itself (pp. 41,42). A new form of international unity was called for, Engels observed, based on the independent working-class parties that were springing up in different countries.

Marx and Engels saw their prime duty in helping the new socialist parties to achieve ideological unity and gain mass support. Their many letters to German Social-Democratic leaders show how they dealt with this task. The specific commitment to the German socialists was due to the fact that they were then the only workers’ party which was already an independent political force, as the 1874 Reichstag elections had demonstrated. For the first time in history, the working-class movement had a socialist faction of nine deputies in a parliament. This made a distinct impact on the international socialist movement.

But, as Marx and Engels noted in their writings, the German Social-Democratic Party had not yet become a truly mass party functioning on the principles of the International. To achieve this most difficult goal it was necessary to mend the split in the German labour movement and secure unification of the two socialist organisations—the Social-Democratic Party (Eisenachers) of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, and the General Association of German Workers consisting of followers of Ferdinand Lassalle (see present edition, Vol. 44, pp . 510-14 and this volume, pp . 6-7, 17, 43).

A draft programme, the basis for uniting the two organisations at a congress scheduled in Gotha for May 1875, appeared in the German socialist press in early March, causing Engels to write to Bebel on 18-28 March 1875 and Marx to Wilhelm Bracke on 5 May.

‘You ask me what we think of the unification affair’ (p. 60), Engels wrote in reply to Bebel’s question, and set forth his critical view of many of the draft’s provisions which, in the main, came from the Lassalleans: that ‘in relation to the working class all other classes are only one reactionary mass’, the ‘iron law of wages’ and ‘state aid’ to the producers’ co-operative societies. He noted the absence in the draft of a provision on the international character of the workers’ movement and on the significance of trade unions, and so on. Engels also set forth his own views on various issues raised in the draft.

Marx and Engels blamed the Eisenachers for making unjustifiable ideological concessions to the Lassalleans, amounting in substance to a departure from their 1869 programme (p. 62).

If it was impossible to ‘advance beyond the Eisenach Programme,’ Marx wrote to Bracke, ‘... they should simply have come to an agreement about action against the common foe’ (p. 70).

In a letter to Bracke of 11 October 1875, Engels examined the by then already adopted Gotha Programme. He noted that it did not sufficiently reflect his and Marx’s suggestions, and called attention to its Lassallean rhetoric and slogans, its vulgarly democratic demands, and the incorrectly interpreted provisions of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. ‘When two factions are agreed,’ Engels wrote, ‘they should include in the programme what is agreed, not what is contested’ (p. 95).

In letters to Bracke of 11 October and Bebel of 12 October, Engels explained why Marx and he had refrained from taking a public stand against the Gotha Programme. As he put it, it was because not only the bourgeois press but also the workers interpreted it ‘communistically’. ‘It is this circumstance alone,’ Engels wrote, ‘which has made it possible for Marx and myself not to disassociate ourselves publicly from a programme such as this.’ Engels admitted at the same time that the unification as such was ‘a great success... But it was undoubtedly to be had at a far cheaper price’ (p. 98).

The subsequent period showed that the union of the two socialist parties did lead to success for the German workers. The united party’s membership rose appreciably. Trade unions sprang up under its guidance. The ‘mustering of Social-Democratic forces in Germany’, as Marx put it (p. 188), that took place in January 1877 demonstrated that the party’s prestige had risen, as did the number of its deputies in the Reichstag. But the ideological concessions made to the Lassalleans had lowered the party’s theoretical standard, enhanced the influence of petty-bourgeois socialism, and caused the spread of Diihringian views which, in turn, led to the appearance of opportunism (p. 295). It was indeed obvious that the ideas of scientific socialism had not reached the minds of even the most advanced workers.

Marx and Engels were disturbed by the indifference of some of the party’s leaders to opportunist pronouncements in the labour press. Engels wrote to Liebknecht in July 1877: ‘I was speaking of the party, and that’s whatever it makes itself out to be before the public, in the press and at congresses. ... If, as you say, these people amount to no more than a tiny minority, then obviously the only reason you and the others have to pay any heed to them is that each of them has his supporters. ... Much can ultimately be sweated out by a healthy party, but it is a long and arduous process’ (p. 257).

Opportunism grew strong when the party was compelled to go underground in October 1878 in connection with Bismarck’s Exceptional Law Against the Socialists (better known as the Anti-Socialist Law). A new tactic was called for to suit the new situation. More, the leaders had to cope with vacillation and confusion. As Marx and Engels saw it, a socialist party organ published outside Germany would help. It would propagate the party’s views freely, and spell out its political and tactical principles. Many of Marx’s and Engels’ letters referred to preparations for the publication of Der Sozialdemokrat (in place of the banned Vorwärts) and reflected their struggle for its ideological line. They warned the party leadership that the Zurich Trio—Bernstein, Höchberg, and Schramm—who had been picked for the newspaper’s control committee and who were former followers of Dühring, would be sure to lace the future party paper’s platform with their opportunist views.

The letters of Marx and Engels reflect what preceded the writing of their Circular Letter to August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wilhelm Bracke and others. The Circular Letter, drawn up by Engels on 17-18 September 1879 and endorsed by Marx, was intended, as Engels wrote to Sorge, ‘just for private circulation among the German leaders’ (p. 414). Marx held that considering the party’s underground status, any public discussion of inner-party affairs, a public polemics, would be inevitably damaging. The Circular Letter criticised opportunism as a whole: its renunciation of class struggle and the working-class party’s class character, the conversion of the latter into a party of reform with the exclusive aim of improving capitalism, surrender of the reins of the movement to ‘educated bourgeois’, and the like. The writers of the Circular Letter called attention to the Zürichers’ endeavours to pass off the aggregate of their petty-bourgeois views for socialism. Marx and Engels pointed to the class roots of opportunism, first of all to the existence of a considerable petty-bourgeois contingent in the party which” attempted ‘to reconcile superficially assimilated socialist ideas with the most diverse theoretical viewpoints’ (p. 407).

In conclusion they stressed: ‘We cannot co-operate with men who say openly that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves, and must first be emancipated from above by philanthropic members of the upper and lower middle classes’ (p. 408).

At the same time, Marx and Engels took note of the emergence in the socialist party of an ultra-left current represented by Johann Most, a follower of Dühring’s, and others. According to Engels, their ‘revolutionary tittle-tattle’ was something that had ceased to surprise anyone after the preceding almost forty years (p. 363).

The emergence of the Most group, which was swiftly developing towards anarchism, was traceable largely to the invigoration of the opportunist trend. Engels informed Johann Philipp Becker that the newspaper Freiheit which Most published in London was publicly accusing the leaders of the party of patronising reformists, and blamed them for the mistakes of some socialist Reichstag deputies (p. 383).

Marx wrote to Sorge: ‘Our complaint against Most is not that his Freiheit is too revolutionary; our complaint is that it has no revolutionary content, but merely indulges in revolutionary jargon. Again, our complaint is not that he criticises the party leaders in Germany, but, in the first place, that he kicks up a row in public instead of telling these men what he thinks in writing, as we do, i.e. by letter’ (p. 411).

The Circular Letter helped the party leadership considerably in setting the desired political course and in consolidating the party. Meanwhile, Marx and Engels continued to work for the party’s ideological unity and to combat opportunism and ultra-left sentiment. Of special interest in that respect were Engels’ letters to Bebel of 14 and 24 November and 16 December 1879. Here he elaborated on the correlation of theory and practice, the party’s policy and tactics, the fight for ideological unity, and the like. Engels maintained that ‘every victory gained in Germany gladdens our hearts as much as any gained elsewhere’, and stressed the special responsibility borne by an advanced body such as the party of German Social-Democrats. He could not help feeling concerned that ‘the practical conduct of the German party, and notably the public utterances of the party leadership, should continue to accord with the general theory’ (p. 421). He pointed out that it was essential to ‘compare from time to time what has been said and what has been done with the theoretical tenets valid for any modern proletarian movement’ (ibid.).

Engels wrote: ‘A party ... can only look for its laws to its living and ever changing needs. But if it seeks to subordinate those needs to earlier resolutions that are now dead as a doornail, it will be digging its own grave’ (p. 418).

Though these points were examined in relation to the underground Social-Democratic movement in Germany, they amounted in substance to general principles governing the development of the international socialist movement as a whole.

The correspondence of Marx and Engels shows that they followed developments in the working-class movement in Europe and the United States of America. They looked into its character and specific features from country to country, and any incipient new trends. Nor did they lose time to inform their correspondents about all the more significant events. In August 1874, for example, Marx let Sorge know about the appearance in France, where reaction dominated at the time, of trade unions (workers’ syndicates) that could, as he saw it, serve as ‘a point of departure for the time when freer movement’ was again possible (p. 30).

When articles appeared in the German newspaper Vorwärts saying it was not necessary for the masses in France to fight the threat of a monarchist coup, Engels wrote to Liebknecht, Johann Philipp Becker and others that it was not a matter of indifference to the workers what type of government existed in their country—a reactionary monarchy as, say, in Germany or a bourgeois-democratic republic. Consolidation of the republic in France, he wrote, offered the working class an opportunity to win democratic rights requisite ‘for organisation and struggle’. He added: ‘That is all they need to begin with’ (p. 294).

Examining the working-class movement in Britain, Marx and Engels pointed out that its distinctive features were the trade unions that served as the movement’s main form, a lack of interest in socialist theory, and the traditional commitment to a two-party system. Politically, Marx wrote, the English workers followed as before the Liberal Party (p. 299). The English workers’ movement, Engels wrote to Eduard Bernstein on 17 June 1879, ‘has been going round and round ... in a confined circle of strikes for wages and the reduction of working hours’. He added that the strikes were regarded in England not ‘as an expedient and a means of propaganda and organisation, but as the ultimate aim’. Summing up, Engels stated: ‘At this moment a genuine workers’ movement in the continental sense is non-existent here’ (pp. 360, 361).

The contacts of Marx and Engels with socialist leaders in various countries increased over the years. In the Appendices to this volume you will find an extract from the reply of Jules Guesde, editor of the French socialist newspaper Égalité, to a letter from Marx which, unfortunately, is not extant. Guesde’s reply gives a clue to what Marx had written: the historical necessity for a revolutionary transformation of society, the nature of the transformation, and the special role of an independent and militant workers’ party (p. 451).

Engels’ ties with Enrico Bignami, editor of the Italian newspaper La Plebe (Milan), and Eudoxio Gnecco, editor of the Portuguese newspaper O Protesto (Lisbon), were quite strong. He informed them of the German socialists’ campaign in the January 1877 Reichstag elections. For the Italian workers’ movement, in which anarchist influences still prevailed, this was important. Engels’ letter to Bignami about the election results was published in La Plebe on 26 February 1877 (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 172-73).

An important means of securing ties among socialists of different countries, Marx and Engels held, was to exchange printed matter and learn about other parties’ experience. Engels advised Johann Philipp Becker to contact the newly-established Portuguese socialist party, to print its contributions, and to supply it in return with requisite material (p. 174). He wrote the same to Liebknecht and other’ socialists.

On the whole, the correspondence of Marx and Engels was evidence of their growing influence on the international workingclass movement. Besides, it reflected the growing role played by their associates heading the socialist movement and their increasing knowledge of theory.

Marx wrote to the German socialist Wilhelm Bios that he and Engels were categorically opposed to any personality cult. ‘Neither of us,’ he wrote, ‘cares a straw for popularity. Let me cite one proof of this: such was my aversion to the personality cult that at the time of the International, when plagued by numerous moves— originating from various countries—to accord me public honour, I never allowed one of these to enter the domain of publicity’ (p. 288).

The volume contains the letters of Marx and Engels to their Russian friends—Pyotr Lavrov, Nikolai Danielson and others. The contact with Lavrov was obviously strong and enduring. Marx posted various editions of the first volume of Capital to Lavrov, and received Russian books from him. He also regularly read the Russian-language journal Vperyod! published by Lavrov, which acquainted him with the state of the revolutionary movement in Russia (pp. 58, 91 et al.). Lavrov supplied him with various other material, including an account of the trials of young Russian revolutionaries in the 1870s. Marx passed on this information to Keyes O’Clery, an Irish MP, for use in the House of Commons (see this volume, pp. 210, 211; MEGA, Abt. I, Band 24).

In his long letters to Danielson, Marx set forth his views on the world economic crisis of the 1870s, industrial development, and Russia’s financial straits (pp. 344, 346-47, 354-58). In a preface to the first Russian-language edition of the second volume of Capital in 1885, Danielson cited passages from Marx’s letters to him of 15 November 1878 and 10 April 1879, examining the growth of capitalist relations in the United States, the British economic crisis of the 1870s, and the reasons why the appearance of the second volume was delayed.

In some of their letters, Marx and Engels delved into the foreign policy of European states and, notably, into the possibility of a new war in Europe and its consequences for the working-class movement. Though Engels wrote to Johann Philipp Becker on 20 November 1876 that there was a ‘universal lull’ at the time (p. 174), both he and Marx did not rule out the possibility of war between European countries in the 1870s. Dwelling on the subject in a letter to Bebel of 16 December 1879, Engels wrote he was convinced that a ‘war such as that would, for us, be the greatest of misfortunes; it might set the movement back by twenty years’ (p. 431).

Much space in the letters of 1877-78 was devoted to the rise of the revolutionary movement in Russia, its character, and international impact. Marx and Engels related revolution in Russia directly to the aggravation of the Eastern crisis that culminated in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. In their letters and articles of that period, they noted Russia’s abrupt economic decline, the impending financial crisis, and the mounting disaffection among Russia’s impoverished nobility and among the peasant masses (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 39-50, 203-06, 251-52, and this volume, pp. 278, 295).

Marx and Engels were certain that a Russian revolution would inevitably influence the state of affairs in the rest of Europe, causing the revolutionary movement to grow and laying the ground for the downfall of autocratic monarchies. They were convinced revolution would break out if Russia lost its war against Turkey. In a letter to Liebknecht in February 1878 Marx made this plain in the following terms: ‘The defeat of the Russians would have greatly expedited social revolution in Russia, of which all the elements are present in abundant measure, and hence radical change throughout Europe’ (p. 296).

For Marx and Engels, revolution in Russia was part of the world revolutionary process. This explains their one-sided view of the democratic movement that sprang up at the time in Britain in support of the struggle of the Slav nations in the Balkans against Turkish rule (pp. 292, 299). In Marx’s view it was tantamount to backing tsarism.

But even after the war, which culminated in Turkey’s defeat, Marx and Engels noted that revolutionary events were coming to a head in Russia (p. 431).

The letters of Marx and Engels contain extensive biographical information. Those had been uneasy years for the two friends. Marx and his wife were often ill. Marx took the misfortunes of his eldest daughter Jenny, who lost her first-born child, very close to heart. Lizzie Burns, Engels wife, was taken ill time and again, and died in 1878. The letters show how considerate Marx and Engels were to each other and to their friends and associates. They helped them financially and offered moral support during the hard times of government persecution, when they were imprisoned or denied a chance to earn their living. The letters refer to many such cases. Engels, for example, wrote to Johann Philipp Becker, ‘anything I can do for you will always be done without fail, and always with pleasure’ (p. 383).

* * *

Volume 45 contains 292 of Marx’s and Engels’ letters. Out of these, 206 appear in English for the first time, while out of the 86 that did appear before, 35 had previously been published incomplete. Those published in English earlier are indicated in the Notes. Out of the eight letters given in the Appendices, six appear in English for the first time.

In view of the organic connection of Engels’ letter to August Bebel of 18-28 March 1875, Marx’s letter to Wilhelm Bracke of 5 May 1875 and the Circular Letter of Marx and Engels dated 17-18 September 1879, with all the other correspondence of that period, and considering their particular scientific and political significance, the three said letters, already published in Volume 24 of the present edition, are also being given in this volume.

Obvious slips of the pen in the letters have been corrected without comment. Proper and place names and separate words abbreviated by the authors are given in full, except when the abbreviations were meant to mislead possible censors or were undecipherable. Defects in the manuscripts are pointed out in footnotes, while lost or illegible passages are indicated by omission points. If presumable reconstruction is possible, it is given in square brackets. Any text crossed out by the authors is reproduced in footnotes only where it is pertinent. Rough drafts of letters or fragments reproduced in some other document, etc., are indicated either in the text itself or in the Notes.

Foreign words and expressions are left as given by the authors, with a translation wherever necessary, and displayed in italics (in spaced italics if underlined in the original). Wherever Marx and Engels used English words and expressions in letters they had written in German, French or some other language, these are given in small caps. If whole passages are in English, they are placed in asterisks. If the same facts or events recur in the texts of different letters, the same note number is given every time. Some of the words are now somewhat archaic or have undergone changes in usage. For example, the term ‘nigger’, which has acquired generally—but especially in the USA—a more profane and unacceptable status than it had in Europe during the 19th century.

The texts of the letters and Notes were prepared by Vladimir Sazonov (letters dated from January 1874 to December 1877) and Natalia Kalennikova (letters dated from January 1878 to December 1879, and the Notes). The Preface is written by Valeria Kunina, assisted by Natalia Kalennikova. The Name Index, the Index of Quoted and Mentioned Literature and the Index of Periodicals are by Natalia Kalennikova; Vera Popova took part in preparing the text and pertinent matter. The editors of the volume are Valeria Kunina and Velta Pospelova (Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU).

The translations were done by Rodney Livingstone, Peter and Betty Ross (Lawrence & Wishart), K. M. Cook and Stepan Apresyan (Progress Publishers) and edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Nicholas Jacobs (Lawrence & Wishart), Lydia Belyakova, Yelena Kalinina, Stephen Smith (Progress Publishers), and Alexander Malysh and Vladimir Mosolov, scientific editors (Institute of Marxism-Leninism).

The volume was prepared for the press by the editors Svetlana Gerasimenko, Yelena Kalinina and Ann a Vladimirova (Progress Publishers).