{London,]} 21 January 1871 

Dear Meyer, 

The formation of the so-called Central Committee in New York 
was absolutely not to my taste. I deferred the approval of the 
General Council as long as possible but found the ground taken 
from under my feet as soon as it emerged from a letter from Mr 
Charnier that Dupont, our French secretary ‘—a thoroughly good 
man, but too forceful and so often led astray by his thirst for 
action—-had been responsible for starting the whole thing. Alors, il 
n’y avait plus rien @ faire“ He was officially rebuked by the General 
Council, mais le jeu était fait*! Engels (who now lives here) and I 
would just like to remind Vogt and yourself that according to our 
Rules the General Council can only intervene with a veto in the 

a Here: most cherished goal. - > K. Marx, ‘On the Freedom of the Press and 
Meetings in Germany’. - © Corresponding Secretary of the General Council for the 
French sections of the International in the United States - 4 So nothing further could 
be done. - © Here: but the damage was done! 

event of open violations of the Rules and principles of the 
International. Apart from that, however, it is our invariable policy 
to let the sections have their head and conduct their own affairs. 
The only exception to this was France, because of her special 
situation under the Empire. It follows, therefore, that our friends 
will just have to cut their coat according to their cloth. Here in 
London, we work together with Englishmen, some of whom are 
not at all to our liking and who, as we know perfectly well, only 
want to exploit the International as a milch-cow for their own 
petty personal ambitions. Nevertheless, we have to put bonne mine 
a@ mauvais jeu.” If we were to withdraw in indignation on their 
account, we would only give them a power which is at pre- 
sent paralysed by our presence. And you must act in the same 
way. 

Quant a> Vogt I was convinced from the outset that pompous 
Sorge was just blustering. However, I had to make a reply when 
he questioned me directly.“ Otherwise he would have taken his 
gossip to my friend Schily in person, a piece of unpleasantness I 
wished the latter to be spared. 

We have given rise to a powerful movement among the working 
class over here against Gladstone (in support of the Frencu 
Repusuic '**), which will probably bring about his downfall. Prussia is 
wholly under the sway of the Russian Cabinet. If it gains a conclusive 
victory, the Heroic GERMAN PHILISTINE will get what he deserves. 
Unfortunately, the present French government thinks it can wage a 
revolutionary war without a revolution. 

Freiligrath, the noble poet, is on a visit to his daughters here at 
the moment. He does not dare to show his face to me. The 60,000 
thalers presented to him by the German philistines'?° have to be 
paid off in Tyrtaean hymns like ‘Germania, thou woman proud’,* 
etc. 

My health has again been abominable for months on end, but 
who can give thought to such trivia at a time of such momentous 
historical events! 

The semi-official Archives of Forensic Medicine’ are published in 
St Petersburg (in Russian). One of the physicians writing for this 
journal published an article, ‘On the Hygienic Conditions of the 
West European Proletariat’, in the last quarto issue, chiefly quoting 
my book and mentioning the source. This resulted in the 

a good face on it-> As for -© See this volume, p. 57.-4 Kathe and Luise 
Freiligrath - ¢ from Freiligrath’s poem Hurra, Germania! -! Apxues Cydebuott 
Meoduyunn u OGwecmeennoti Tuzienst - 8 Volume I of Capital 

et 
un Ap Gs ate fa fy 

ae 

caine ore ie Ayh uy 

A page from Marx’s letter to Sigfrid Meyer of 21 January 1871 

following calamity: the censor was severely rebuked by the Minister 
oF THE Interior,* the Editor-in-Chief was fired, and that issue of the 
journal—all] the corres they could still get hold of—was consigned 
to the flames! !* 

I don’t know whether I told you that since the beginning of 
1870 I have been having to teach myself Russian, which I now 
read fairly fluently. This came about after I had been sent 
Flerovsky’s very important work on The Condition of the Working 
Class (Especially the Peasants) in Russia from St Petersburg; I also 
wanted to familiarise myself with the (excellent) economic works of 
Chernyshevsky (who was rewarded by being sentenced to the 
Siberian mines for the past seven years’*). The result was worth 
the effort that a man of my age must make to master a language 
differing so greatly from the classical, Germanic, and Romance 
languages. The intellectual movement now taking place in Russia 
testifies to the fact that things are seething deep below the surface. 
Minds are always connected by invisible threads with the sopy of 
the people. 

You and Vogt still owe me your photograms. At least I think 
they were promised to me. 

Regards to you and Vogt, 

Yours, 
Karl Marx 

I wrote to my old friend G. J. Harney,” who is now Assis- 
tant Secretary of State of Massachusetts, concerning the pusiic 
LANDS.