MARX TO SIGFRID MEYER AND AUGUST VOGT!” 

London, 9 April 1870 

Dear Meyer and dear Vogt, 

So here you have me in all postures, one time together with my 
eldest daughter Jenny. Kugelmann had all these things printed 
from earlier photograms." Je ne suis pas Vauteur responsable de ces 
folies.? 

First of all, with regard to my long letter-debt to you, you will 
see from the enclosed note from Eccarius that the General Council 
has passiert a votum oF conpotence** because of the state of my 
health. (You see, I am practising Pennsylvanian German.) In fact, 
because of repeated relapses, I have only been able to attend the 
meetings of the General Council twice since the beginning of 
December, so, for all important discussions, the subcommittee came 
to my place. Under these circumstances (and I am still not 
completely restored), my free moments have literally been so 
absorbed by work that my correspondence has been limited to the 
completely unavoidable. 

First, ad vocem* Sorge: he has written two letters to Eccarius as 
General Secretary. Eccarius informed the General Council of this. 
The latter instructed Eccarius to deliver the letters to me for 
answering, as I was Secretary for the German branches in the 
Unitep Srates. I tarried intentionally, as I knew that Meyer was on 
a trip to the West Indies, and could not find Vogt’s private 
address. 

I do not know Sorge’s private letters to Eccarius. They probably 
deal simply with the money question, payment to Eccarius for his 
contributions to the Arbeiter-Union. Eccarius regards his position 
as General Secretary too much as a means of making money, and in 
a way that compromises us Germans in the eyes of the French and 
English. See, for instance, the enclosed note to me from 
Lessner.*”? This is also the reason that I shall not communicate 
Meyer’s letter to Eccarius, since it conveys the information, 
irresistible to Eccarius, that Sorge has ‘pecuniary resources’. 

a See this volume, p. 213 - > I am not the author responsible for these follies. - © An 
unidiomatic use of the German verb passieren (to happen, take place, pass by), on 
which Marx comments in the parenthesis. - 4 regarding 

With regard to Sorge’s two official letters, they are written in the 
name of the General German Workers’ Association ‘Lasor Union’ 
No. 5, and signed Corresponding Secretary. 

One letter contains orders for the reports of the General 
Council, and various other commonplace stuff. 

The other letter contains nothing essential except for the 
notification that the association has joined the ‘International’. 

I shall write a few lines to Mr Sorge today, sending him the 15 
corres of the latest report he requests.* 

A certain Robert William Hume (Astoria, Long Island, New York) 
sent us a detailed letter some time ago, on the occasion of the 
decisions of the General Council concerning the Irish amnesty °— 
a letter better than anything we had so far received from 
English-American circles. On my recommendation, he was named 
American-English correspondent, and has accepted this. I would, 
therefore, request you to get into contact with this man, and for 
this purpose I enclose a few lines addressed to him. 

From the enclosed cutting from the Marseillaise of 2 April, you 
will see that F. Carl and F. Jubitz—persons unknown to us 
here—have sent an address to Paris in the name of the German 
workers.™! I would like to know whether these people belong to 
you. What was regarded as dubious here—on the General 
Council— was the fact that the International was not mentioned at 
all, but rather treated as non-existent. 

General Cluseret has offered himself from New York to the 
General Council as French correspondent. Whether he was 
accepted I cannot say, believe I have heard so, however. He is a 
flighty, superficial, officious, boastful fellow. For instance, in one 
of his latest letters to the Marseillaise‘ he presents himself as a 
recognised representative of the workers of New York. But the 
man is of a certain importance for us just because of his links with 
the Marseillaise. In case you should wish to get to know this ‘hero’, 
even if only to sound. him out, I enclose for you a crepen7raL, which 
might also be or usr elsewhere. 

The money Meyer sent to Stepney has been delivered to the 
General Council. Stepney is a very pedantic, but honest English- 
man. He sent me the letter from Meyer with enclosures, so I had 
to send the stuff back to the General Council. 

a Report of the Fourth Annual Congress of the International Working Men’s Association, 
held at Basle, in Switzerland. - > K. Marx, Draft Resolution of the General Council on the 
Policy of the British Government Towards the Irish Prisoners (see also this volume, 
pp. 375-76). -¢ G. P. Cluseret, ‘Aux travailleurs américains’, La Marseillaise, 
No. 103, 2 April 1870. 

The day after tomorrow (11 April) I shall send you what 
International things I have at hand. (It is too late for the mail 
today.) I shall, ditto, send more of the ‘Basle’. 

Amongst the stuff sent, you will also find a few copies of the 
resolutions of the General Council of 30 November on the Irish 
amnesty, which you already know, and which I initiated’; ditto an 
Irish pamphlet on the treatment of Fenian convicts.‘ 

I had intended to submit further resolutions on the necessary 
transformation of the present Union (i.e., enslavement of 
Ireland) in A FREE AND EQUAL FEDERATION with Great Britain. Further 
progress on this matter has been temporarily suspended 4s Far as 
PUBLIC RESOLUTIONS Go because of my enforced absence from the 
General Council. No other member of it has enough knowledge of 
Irish affairs or sufficient prestige with the English members of the 
General Council to be able to replace me on this matter. 

Time has not passed uselessly, however, and I would ask you to 
pay particular attention to the following: 

After studying the Irish question for years I have come to the 
conclusion that the decisive blow against the ruling classes in 
England (and this is decisive for the workers’ movement ALL OVER 
THE world) cannot be struck in England, but only in Ireland. 

On | January 18704 the General Council] issued a secret circular, 
written by me in French‘—{for repercussions in England, only 
the French papers are important, not the German}—on the 
relationship of the Irish national struggle to the emancipation of 
the working class, and thus on the attitude the International 
Association must take towards the Irish question. 

Here I give you, quite shortly, the salient points. Ireland is the 
Bucwark of the English landed aristocracy. The exploitation of this 
country is not simply one of the main sources of their material 
wealth; it is their greatest moral power. They represent, In Fact, the 
domination of England over Ireland. Ireland is, thus, the grand moyen‘ 
by which the English aristocracy maintains its domination in England 
itself. 

a Report of the Fourth Annual Congress of the International Working Men’s Association, held 
at Basle, in Switzerland. - > K. Marx, Draft Resolution of the General Council on the Policy 
of the British Government Towards the Irish Prisoners. - < Apparently Marx refers to the 
first five articles on the Irish question written by Jenny Marx and published by that 
time in the Marseillaise. - 4 the original has: 1 December 1869 - © The General Council 
to the Federal Council of Romance Switzerland. - £ cardinal means 

On the other hand: if the English army and police were 
withdrawn from Ireland tomorrow, you would immediately have 
AN AGRARIAN REVOLUTION IN IRELAND. But the overthrow of the English 
aristocracy in Ireland would entail, and would lead immediately to, 
its overthrow in England. This would bring about the prerequisites 
for the proletarian revolution in England. In Ireland, the land 
question has, so far, been the exclusive form of the social question; it 
is a question of existence, a question of life or death for the immense 
majority of the Irish people; at the same time, it is inseparable 
from the national question: because of this, destruction of the 
English landed aristocracy is an infinitely easier operation in 
Ireland than in England itself—quite apart from the more 
passionate and more revolutionary character of the Irish than the 
English. 

As for the English bourgeoisie, it has, d’abord,* a common 
interest with the English aristocracy in turning Ireland into simple 
pastureland to provide meat and wool at the cheapest possible 
price ror THE English Marker. It has the same interest in reducing the 
Irish population to such a low level, through eviction and forced 
emigration, that English capital (leasehold capital) can function 
with ‘security’ in that country. It has the same interest IN CLEARING 
THE ESTATE OF IRELAND as it had IN THE CLEARING OF THE AGRICULTURAL DISTRICTS 
oF Encranp and Scot.anp. The £6,000-10,000 assentee and other 
Irish revenues that at present flow annually to London must also 
be taken into account. 

But the English bourgeoisie also has much more important 
interests in the present Irish economy. As a result of the 
steadily-increasing concentration of leaseholding, Ireland is steadi- 
ly supplying its surptus for the English Lasour marker, and thus 
forcing down the waces and material and moral position of the 
ENGLISH WORKING CLASS. 

And most important of all! All industrial and commercial 
centres in England now have a working class divided into two 
hostile camps, English proterarians and Irish prorerarians. The 
ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor 
who forces down the stranparp oF tire. In relation to the Irish 
worker, he feels himself to be a member of the ruling nation and, 
therefore, makes himself a tool of his aristocrats and capitalists 
against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. 
He harbours religious, social and national prejudices against him. 
His attitude towards him is roughly that of the poor wuitrs to the 

a in the first place 

niccers* in the former slave states of the American Union. The 
Irishman Pays HIM BACK WITH INTEREST IN HIS OWN MONEY. He sees in the 
English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of English 
rule in Ireland. 

This antagonism is kept artificially alive and intensified by the 
press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short by all the means at the 
disposal] of the ruling class. This antagonism is the secret of the English 
working class’s impotence, despite its organisation. It is the secret of the 
maintenance of power by the capitalist class. And the latter is fully 
aware of this. 

But the evil does not end here. It rolls across the ocean. The 
antagonism between English and Irish is the secret basis of the 
conflict between the Unitep States and England. It renders any 
serious and honest cooperation impossible between the working 
classes of the two countries. It enables the governments of the two 
countries, whenever they think fit, to blunt the edge of social conflict 
by MUTUAL BULLYING and, IN case oF NEED, by war between the two 
countries. 

England, as the metropolis of capital, as the power that has 
hitherto ruled the world market, is for the present the most 
important country for the workers’ revolution and, in addition, the 
only country where the material conditions for this revolution have 
developed to a certain state of maturity. Thus, to hasten the social 
revolution in England is the most important object of the 
International Working Men’s Association. The sole means of doing 
so is to make Ireland independent. It is, therefore, the task of the 
‘INTERNATIONAL’ to bring the conflict between England and Ireland to 
the forefront everywhere, and to side with Ireland publicly 
everywhere. The special task of the Central Council in London is 
to awaken the consciousness of the English working class that, for 
them, the national emancipation of Ireland is not a QUESTION OF ABSTRACT 
JUSTICE OR HUMANITARIAN SENTIMENT, but THE FIRST CONDITION OF THEIR OWN 
SOCIAL EMANCIPATION. 

These are roughly the main points of the circular letter, which, 
at the same time, gave the raisons d’étre for the resolutions of the 
Central Council on the Irish amnesty. Shortly afterwards I sent a 
strongly-worded anonymous article on the English treatment of 
the Fentans etc., and against Gladstone etc., to the Internationale” 
(organ of our Belgian Central Committee‘ in Brussels). In this 
article I also pilloried the Frencu Rerusticans—(the Marseillaise had 

4 See p. XXXVIII of the Preface.— Ed. - > K. Marx. The English Government and the 
Fenian Prisoners. - © Belgian Federal Committee 

1s* 

published some stupid nonsense about Ireland, written here by the 
wretched Tallandier*)—-for saving, in their national egoism, all 
their coléres for the Empire. 

This worked. My daughter Jenny wrote a series of articles for 
the Marsetllaise under the name J. Williams (she signed herself 
Jenny Williams in her private letter to the editors), and published, 
among other things, O’Donovan Rossa’s letter. HENCE IMMENSE NOISE. 
After many years of cynical refusal, Gladstone was thereby finally 
compelled to authorise a parliamentary enquéte“ into the treatment 
of the Fentan prisoners. She is NOW REGULAR CORRESPONDENT ON IRISH AFFAIRS 
for the Marseillaise. (This is naturally a secret between us.) The 
British Government and press are furious that the Irish question 
has thus been placed on the ordre du jour’ in France, and that 
these blackguards will now be watched and exposed all over 
continent, via Paris. 

A second bird was hit by the same stone. We have, thereby, 
forced the Irish leaders, journalists, etc. in Dublin to establish 
contact with us, something the General Council had hitherto failed 
to achieve! 

You have a wide field in America for work along the same lines. 
A coalition of the German workers with the Irish workers (naturally, 
also, with the English and American workers who wish to join in) 
is the greatest thing you could undertake now. This must be done 
in the name of the ‘International’. The social significance of the 
Irish question must be made clear. 

Next time, several special things about the position of the 
English workers. 

Salut et fraternité! 

Karl Marx