Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels

Herr Bucher

The Daily News.
No. 10030, 13 June 1878

Herr Bucher.

To the Editor of the Daily News.

Sir—According to a telegram of Reuter’s, “Herr Bucher, Councillor of
Legation, is designated for the post of secretary and keeper of the records
of the Congress.” Should this “Herr Bucher” be the same Lothar Bucher
who, during his long London exile, shone as a staunch partisan of the late
Mr. David Urquhart, whose anti-Russian doctrines he held forth week by
week in the Berlin National Gazette; the same Lothar Bucher who, on his
return to Berlin, turned so ardent a votary of Ferdinand Lassalle that the
latter named him his testamentary executor, bequeathed him an annual
revenue, and transferred the copyright of his works to Lothar Bucher? Soon
after Lassalle’s death Lothar Bucher entered the Prussian Foreign Office,
was made a “Councillor of Legation,” and became Bismarck’s confidential
man-of-all-work. He had the naïveté to address a letter to myself, inviting
me, of course with the sanction of his master, to undertake the money article
of the Prussian official Staatsanzeiger. The pecuniary terms were left to my
discretion, while I was expressly told I should enjoy full liberty of treating
the operations and the operators of the money market from my own
“scientific” standpoint. Since this odd incident I felt not a little amused at
seeing Lothar Bucher’s contributions as a member of the “International
Working Men’s Association” daily and yearly chronicled in the columns of
the Vorbote, an organ of the International, edited by Johann Philipp Becker
at Geneva. If this be not a case of mistaken identity, and if there be anything
in the reports that the Russian and German Governments, à propos of the
attempts of Hoedel and Nobiling, intend to propose to the Congress international
measures against the spread of Socialism, then Herr Bucher is the

very man to tell the Congress authoritatively that the organisation, the
action, and the doctrines of the German Social-Democratic party have no
more to do with these attempts than with the sinking of the Grosser Kurfürst,
or with the meeting of the Congress at Berlin; that the panic-mongering
arrests throughout Germany and the whirlwind of dust raised by the press
reptiles serve the exclusive purpose of an electioneering cry for a Reichstag
ready to sanction at last the solution, long since elaborated by Prince Bismarck,
of the paradox problem how to endow the German Government with
all the financial resources of a modern State, while, at the same time, reimposing
upon the German people the ancient political régime scattered to
pieces by the hurricane of 1848.—
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, KARL MARX.

London, June 12.

Karl Marx
Reply to Bucher’s “Declaration”

Herr Lothar Bucher has published a “Declaration” in the Norddeutsche
Allgemeine of 21 June, which first of all records the unpleasant circumstance
that my letter to the Daily News has been reproduced by the National
Liberal and Progressive papers. Herr Bucher states that 3,000 lines are
required to straighten out the distortions I have compressed together.
Thirty lines are more than enough to establish, once and for all, the truthvalue
of Bucherian “corrections” and “supplements.”

The letter in which Herr Bucher sought to bait me for the Staatsanzeiger
is dated 8 October 1865, i.e. from the period of the conflict between the
Prussian liberal and progressive bourgeoisie and Herr von Bismarck. It
says, inter alia:

“With regard to the content, it goes without saying that you will follow
only your scientific conviction; however, regard for the readership—haute
finance—and not for the editorial board will make it advisable for you to
allow the innermost core to show through only for the expert.”

By contrast, Herr Bucher’s “correction” asserts that he “asked Herr
Marx whether he would supply the desired articles, in which an objective
treatment was the point. There is nothing in my letter about Herr Marx’s
‘own scientific standpoint.’”

Furthermore, the same letter states:

“The Staatsanzeiger desires a monthly report on the movements of the
money market (and naturally also of the commodity market, insofar as
the two are inseparable). I was asked whether I could not recommend
someone and replied that no one would do it better than you. I have
consequently been requested to apply to you.”

Thus, according to his own unambiguous words, Herr Bucher opened
his “correspondence” with me at the request of someone or other. By
contrast his “correction” protests:

“Nobody, not even the editor of the Staatsanzeiger, has known or learned
anything of this correspondence.”

So much for Herr Bucher’s method of correction. Now yet a sample of
his method of supplementation!

My letter to the Daily News only speaks of Herr Bucher’s “naive”
enquiry addressed to me, but says not a word about my reply to him. He,
however, in his eagerness to stamp the “odd incident” with the character
of triviality, has to “supplement” me, and therefore fabricates: “Herr Marx
replied to him that he did not write for a reactionary paper.”

How should I reply with such a commonplace to a letter whose
“innermost core” does not merely show through, but flashes blindingly in
the following closing passage:

“Progress (he means the liberal or Progressive bourgeoisie) will shed its
skin many times before it dies; whoever, therefore, still wants to be active
within the state during his lifetime must rally to the government.”