Karl Marx's life was a continuous struggle against the bourgeoisie, the idealists, state repression, the Utopian socialists and vulgar materialists on the one hand and against never ending poverty, debts, ill health and personal losses on the other. After finishing his studies and realising that it was impossible to get a university position because of his radical views in philosophy and politics, he decided to try his hand in journalism. His fiery works in journalism and his involvement in radical politics got him expelled first from Belgium and then from Prussia. Thus he landed in London where he spent the rest of his life amidst poverty and recurring ill health. He lost 3 of his children mainly because his financial constraints did not allow him to provide adequate medical care. The Marx family lived on bare essentials most of the time and was besieged by creditors from all directions. On top of this he was constantly under attack from the idealist bourgeois camp and from the socialist one. His books were greeted with complete silence and ignored by the mainstream media and intellectuals. It is truly amazing how Marx kept working and unearthing deep truths about the capitalist fabric in spite of these demoralising circumstances and defeats. The world have two people to thank for this: Engels and Jenny. They sacrificed everything to support Karl because of their love for him and their absolute belief in his genius. The following letter by Jenny Marx to Karl's intimate friend Weydemeyer, written as they were starting their life in London, clearly shows us the extent of the difficulties that they faced. We believe that it is essential reading for every comrade. As Jenny wrote after the muted response that Marx's 'Capital', Volume 1 received: “...you can believe me when I tell you there can be few books that have been written in more difficult circumstances, and I am sure I could write a secret history of it which would tell many, extremely many unspoken troubles and anxieties and torments. If the workers had an inkling of the sacrifices that were necessary for this work, which was written only for them and for their sakes to be completed they would perhaps show a little more interest.” In spite of all this, as Bernard Shaw said, "He did the greatest literary feat a man can do. Marx changed the mind of the world."
From Jenny Marx to Joseph Weydemeyer
May 20,
1850, London
(Source:
Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 38)
Dear Mr
Weydemeyer,
Almost a year has gone by since I was accorded such
a kind and cordial reception by you and your dear wife, since I felt
so happy and at home in your house, and throughout that long time I
have sent you no word; I remained silent when your wife wrote to me
so kindly, I even remained mute when news reached us of the birth of
your child. I have myself often felt oppressed by this silence, but
for much of the time I have been incapable of writing, and even today
find it difficult, very difficult.
Circumstances, however, compel me to take up my
pen—I beg you to send us as soon as possible any money that has
come in or comes in from the Revue. We are in dire need of
it. No one, I am sure, could reproach us with having made
much ado about what we have been obliged to renounce and put up with
for years; the public has never, or hardly ever, been importuned with
our private affairs, for my husband is very sensitive about such
matters and would sooner sacrifice all he has left rather than demean
himself by passing round the democratic begging-bowl, as is done by
the official great men. But what he was entitled to expect of his
friends, especially in Cologne, was active and energetic concern for
his Revue. He was above all entitled to expect such concern
from those who were aware of the sacrifices he had made for the Rh.
Ztg. Instead, the business has been utterly ruined by the
negligent, slovenly way in which it was run, nor can one really say
which did most harm—the bookseller's procrastination, or that of
acquaintances and those managing the business in Cologne, or again
the whole attitude of the democrats generally.
Over here my husband has been all but crushed by
the most trivial worries of bourgeois existence, and so exasperating
a form have these taken that it required all the energy, all the
calm, lucid, quiet self-confidence he was able to muster to keep him
going during these daily, hourly struggles. You, dear Mr
Weydemeyer, are aware of the sacrifices made by my husband for the
sake of the paper; he put thousands in cash into it, he took over the
paper's property, talked into doing so by democratic worthies who
otherwise must themselves have assumed responsibility for the debts,
at a time when there was already small prospect of being able to
carry on. To save the paper's political honour and the bourgeois
honour of his Cologne acquaintances, he shouldered every burden, he
gave up his machinery, he gave up the entire proceeds and, on his
departure, even borrowed 300 Reichstalers so as to pay the rent for
newly hired premises, the editors' arrears of salary, etc.—and he
was forcibly expelled.
As you know, we saved nothing out of all this for
ourselves, for I came to Frankfurt to pawn my silver—all that we
had left, I sold my furniture in Cologne because I was in danger of
seeing my linen and everything else placed under distraint. As the
unhappy era of counter-revolution dawned, my husband went to Paris
where I followed him with my three children. Hardly had we settled
down in Paris than he was expelled, I and my children being refused
permission to stay for any length of time. Again I followed him
across the sea. A month later our 4th child was born. You would have
to know London and what conditions are like here to realise what that
means—3 children and the birth of a 4th. We had to pay 42 talers a
month in rent alone. All this we were in a position to defray with
our own realised assets. But our slender resources ran out with the
appearance of the Revue. Agreements or no agreements, the
money failed to come in, or only by dribs and drabs, so that we found
ourselves faced with the most frightful situations here.
Let me describe for you, as it really was, just one
day in our lives, and you will realise that few refugees are likely
to have gone through a similar experience. Since wet-nurses here are
exorbitantly expensive, I was determined to feed my child myself,
however frightful the pain in my breast and back. But the poor little
angel absorbed with my milk so many anxieties and unspoken sorrows
that he was always ailing and in severe pain by day and by night.
Since coming into the world, he has never slept a whole night
through—at most two or three hours. Latterly, too, there have
been violent convulsions, so that the child has been hovering
constantly between death and a miserable life. In his pain he sucked
so hard that I got a sore on my breast—an open sore; often blood
would spurt into his little, trembling mouth. I was sitting thus
one day when suddenly in came our landlady, to whom we had paid over
250 Reichstalers in the course of the winter, and with whom we had
contractually agreed that we should subsequently pay, not her, but
her landlord by whom she had formerly been placed under distraint;
she now denied the existence of, the contract, demanded the £5 we
still owed her and, since this was not ready to hand (Naut's letter
arrived too late), two bailiffs entered the house and placed under
distraint what little I possessed—beds, linen, clothes, everything,
even my poor infant's cradle, and the best of the toys belonging to
the girls, who burst into tears. They threatened to take everything
away within 2 hours—leaving me lying on the bare boards with my
shivering children and my sore breast. Our friend Schramm left
hurriedly for town in search of help. He climbed into a cab, the
horses took fright, he jumped out of the vehicle and was brought
bleeding back to the house where I was lamenting in company with my
poor, trembling children.
The following day we had to leave the house, it was
cold, wet and overcast, my husband went to look for lodgings, on his
mentioning 4 children no one wanted to take us in. At last a friend
came to our aid, we paid and I hurriedly sold all my beds so as to
settle with the apothecaries, bakers, butchers, and milkman who,
their fears aroused by the scandal of the bailiffs, had suddenly
besieged me with their bills. The beds I had sold were brought out on
to the pavement and loaded on to a barrow—and then what happens? It
was long after sunset, English law prohibits this, the landlord bears
down on us with constables in attendance, declares we might have
included some of his stuff with our own, that we are doing a flit and
going abroad. In less than five minutes a crowd of two or three
hundred people stands gaping outside our door, all the riff-raff of
Chelsea. In go the beds again; they cannot be handed over to the
purchaser until tomorrow morning after sunrise; having thus been
enabled, by the sale of everything we possessed, to pay every
farthing, I removed with my little darlings into the two little rooms
we now occupy in the German Hotel, 1 Leicester Street, Leicester
Square, where we were given a humane reception in return for £5/10 a
week.
You will forgive me, dear friend, for describing to
you so exhaustively and at such length just one day in our lives over
here. It is, I know, immodest, but this evening my heart has flowed
over into my trembling hands and for once I must pour out that heart
to one of our oldest, best and most faithful friends. Do not
suppose that I am bowed down by these petty sufferings, for I know
only too well that our struggle is not an isolated one and that,
furthermore, I am among the happiest and most favoured few in that my
beloved husband, the mainstay of my life, is still at my side. But
what really shatters me to the very core of my being, and makes my
heart bleed is that my husband has to endure so much pettiness, that
so little would have been needed to help him and that he, who gladly
and joyously helped so many, has been so bereft of help over here.
But as I have said, do not suppose, dear Mr Weydemeyer, that we are
making demands on anyone; if money is advanced to us by anyone,
my husband is still in a position to repay it out of his assets.
The only thing, perhaps, my husband was entitled to ask of those who
owe him many an idea, many a preferment, and much support was that
they should evince more commercial zeal, greater concern for his
Revue. That modicum, I am proud and bold enough to maintain,
that modicum was his due. Nor do I even know whether my husband ever
earned by his labours 10 silver groschen to which he was not fully
entitled. And I don't believe that anyone was the worse off for
it. That grieves me. But my husband is of a different mind.
Never, even in the most frightful moments, has he lost his
confidence in the future, nor yet a mite of his good humour, being
perfectly content to see me cheerful, and our dear children
affectionately caressing their dear mama. He is unaware, dear Mr
Weydemeyer, that I have written to you at such length about our
situation, so do not make any use of this letter. All he knows is
that I have asked you on his behalf to expedite as best you can the
collection and remittance of the money. I know that the use you make
of this letter will be wholly dictated by the tact and
discretion of your friendship for us.
Farewell, dear friend. Convey my most sincere
affection to your wife and give your little angel a kiss from a
mother who has shed many a tear upon the infant at her breast. Should
your wife be suckling her child herself, do not tell her anything of
this letter. I know what ravages are made by any kind of upset and
how bad it is for the little mites. Our three eldest children are
doing wonderfully well, for all that and for all that. The girls are
pretty, blooming, cheerful and in good spirits, and our fat boy is a
paragon of comical humour and full of the drollest ideas. All day the
little imp sings funny songs with tremendous feeling and at the top
of his voice, and when he sings the verse from Freiligrath's
Marseillaise.
Come, O June, and bring
us deeds,
Fresh deeds for which
our hearts do yearn
in a deafening voice, the whole house reverberates.
Like its two unfortunate precursors, that month may be destined by
world history to see the opening of the gigantic struggle during
which we shall all clasp one another's hands again.
Fare well.
