London, 1 July 1879 

Dear Old Man, 

The new half year has brought me in some money and I 
therefore hasten to notify you that I have sent off a money order 
to you for £4 sterling=100 francs 80 centimes; you will doubtless 
get it straight after receipt of this letter. I hope it will be enough 
to relieve your chronic ill-luck, if only for a short spell. I wish we 
could do more than just offer you an occasional helping hand, but 
as you know, recent events have led to heavier demands from all 
sides. 

Liebknecht’s unseasonable mildness in the Reichstag “*° has, 
understandably enough, created a most disagreeable impression in 
the Latin countries of Europe, as it has among Germans 
everywhere. Indeed, we immediately wrote and told him as 
much.**! Agitation of the old, easy-going, lackadaisical sort, 
interspersed with an occasional 6 weeks-6 months in quod, is a 
thing of the past where Germany is concerned. No matter how the 
present state of affairs comes to an end, the new movement is 
starting off on a more or less revolutionary basis and hence its 
character must be far more resolute than in the first period of the 
movement, now concluded. Either the maxim about the peaceable 
attainment of the goal will no longer be necessary, or else no one 
will continue to take it seriously. By making that maxim impossible 
and giving a revolutionary cast to the movement, Bismarck has 
done us a tremendous service which more than outweighs the bit 
of harm caused by interference with agitation. 

On the other hand, the aforementioned tame speech in the 
Reichstag has meant that big-mouthed revolutionary charlatans 
have again begun to raise their heads, and are trying to 
disorganise the party by cliquism and intrigue. At the hub of these 
machinations is our local Workers’ Society which still harbours 
braggarts of ’49 vintage, @ la Weber, Neustadt an der Hardt and 
family. After the revival of the movement in Germany, the people 
over here had lost such significance as they may still have 
possessed in the years 1840-62; now they see an opportunity of 
pushing their way to the top. Even in recent years young Weber, 

one Kaufmann and others have constituted themselves the central 
committee of the European-American working men’s movement 
on at least six occasions, but have always been obstinately ignored 
by the irreverent world. Now they intend to force it through 
and have discovered an ally in Most. The Freiheit is shouting 
for revolution by fire and sword which, for the worthy Most, is, of 
course, a quite unprecedented pleasure in which he could never 
before have allowed himself to indulge. Moreover, it has grossly 
exaggerated the goings-on in the Reichstag and made them a 
pretext for disrupting the party and forming a new one. This is to 
exploit the present exigency and enforced silence in Germany for 
the benefit of a few nitwits whose ambition is notably dispropor- 
tionate to their capabilities—and if, as we have heard, Most has let 
it be known that he has our support, then he is lying. Since he 
embarked on this role he’s kept well out of sight. Au fond,’ it’s as 
well that he should unmask himself like this, thus ruining any 
prospects he might subsequently have in Germany; he is not 
without talent, but horribly vain, undisciplined and ambitious, and 
so it’s "better that he should go and put his foot in it. Come to that, 
the Freiheit won’t, presumably, survive much longer, and then all 
this will quietly relapse into oblivion. 

With most cordial regards from Marx and 
Your 

F. E,