Linschoten

Queen Victoria's eldest daughter,who was named Victoria like herself, married Friedrich Wilhelm, Prince of Prussia, and became Empress of Germany for a few months in 1888. In the 1870's she heard people talking about Karl Marx and his strange ideas, and asked Sir Mounstuart Grant Duff, a British politician with whom she was acquainted, to find out something about him. So Duff arranged to meet Marx at his London club, and recorded his impressions for the princess in this interesting and amusing letter which he sent off on the following day:




"February 1, 1879

Madam,

Your Imperial Highness, when I last had the honour of seeing you, chanced to express some curiosity about Carl Marx and to ask me if I knew him. I resolved accordingly to take the first opportunity of making his acquaintance; but that opportunity did not arise till yesterday when I met him at luncheon and spent three hours in his company.

He is a short, rather small man with grey hair and beard which contrast strangely with a still dark moustache. The face is somewhat round, the forehead well shaped and filled up -- the eye rather hard but the whole expression rather pleasant than not, by no means that of a gentleman who is in the habit of eating babies in their cradles -- which is I daresay the view which the Police takes of him.

His talk was that of a well-informed, nay; learned man -- much interested in Comparative Grammar which had led him into the Old Slavonic and other out of the way studies and was varied by many quaint turns and little bits of dry humour, as when speaking of Hesekiel's life of Prince Bismarck he always referred to it, by way of contrast to Dr. Busch's book, as the Old Testament. [Referring to G. Hesekiel's, Das Buch vom Grafen Bismarck, Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1869]

It was all very positif slightly cynical -- without any appearance of enthusiasm -- interesting and often, as I thought, showing very correct ideas when he was conversing of the past or the present; but vague and unsatisfactory when he turned to the future.

He looks, not unreasonably, for a great and not distant crash in Russia; thinks it will begin by reforms from above which the old bad edifice will not be able to bear and which will lead to its tumbling down altogether. As to what would take its place he had evidently no clear idea, except that for a long time Russia would be unable to exercise any influence in Europe.
Next he thinks that the movement will spread to Germany taking there the form of a revolt against the existing military system.

To my question "But how can you expect the army to rise against its commanders?" he replied -- you forget that in Germany now the army and the Nation are nearly identical. These Socialists you hear about are trained soldiers like anybody else. You must not think of the standing army only. You must think of the Landwehr -- and even in the standing army there is much discontent. Never was an army in which the severity of the discipline led to so many suicides. The step from shooting oneself to shooting one's officer is not long, and an example of the kind, once set, is soon followed.
But supposing I said the rulers of Europe came to an understanding amongst themselves for a reduction of armaments which might greatly relieve the burden on the people what would become of the Revolution which you expect it one day to bring about?

Ah, was his answer they can't do that. All sorts of fears and jealousies will make that impossible. The burden will grow worse and worse as science advances for the improvements in the Art of Destruction will keep pace with its advance and every year more and more will have to be devoted to costly engines of war. It is a vicious circle -- there is no escape from it. But I said you have never yet had a serious popular rising unless there was really great misery. You have no idea, he rejoined, how terrible has been the crisis through which Germany has been passing in these last five years.

Well I said supposing that your Revolution has taken place and that you have your Republican form of Government -- it is still a long long way to the realization of the special ideas of yourself and your friends. Doubtless he answered but all great movements are slow. It would merely be a step to better things as your Revolution of 1688 was -- a mere stage on the road .

The above will give Your Imperial Highness a fair idea of the kind of ideas about the near future of Europe which are working in his mind.
They are too dreamy to be dangerous except just in so far as the situation with its mad expenditure on armaments is obviously and undoubtedly dangerous.

If however within the next decade the rulers of Europe have not found means of dealing with this evil without any warning from attempted revolution I for one shall despair of the future of humanity at least on this continent.
In the course of conversation Carl Marx spoke several times both of Your Imperial Highness and of the Crown Prince and invariably with due respect and propriety. Even in the case of eminent individuals of whom he by no means spoke with respect there was no trace of bitterness or savagery -- plenty acrid and dissolvent criticism but nothing of the Marat tone.
Of the horrible things that have been connected with the International he spoke as any respectable man would have done.

One thing which he mentioned showed the dangers to which exiles who have got a revolutionary name are exposed. The wretched man Nobiling, he had learned, had when in England intended to come to see him. If he had done so he said I should certainly have admitted him for he would have sent in his card as an employe of the Dresden Bureau of Statistics and as I occupy myself with Statistics it would have interested me to talk with him -- What a pleasant position I should have been in he added if he had come to see me!
Altogether my impression of Marx, allowing for his being at the opposite pole of opinion from oneself, was not at all unfavourable and I would gladly meet him again. It will not be he who whether he wishes it or not will turn the world upside down."


His ideas seemed 'too dreamy to be dangerous': how easy it is too underestimate the incendiary power of seemingly far-fetched ideas! But there are always so many ideas of that kind around that is difficult to tell which will catch the wind.

Clemmie

Thanks for sharing this. It was very interesting to read. I liked the part about his ideas being too dreamy to be dangerous and this part which I found amusing:

Edratman

Good letter Lins. Karl Marx obviously made a favorable impression and comes off quite well.

A lot of the information was new to me. In the letter marx comes across as a person with a pragmatic and keen eye for the political landscape of Europe.

The part that I found most interesting was:

Was the suicide rate in the German/Prussian (not sure which would be correct) army that great? And was it attributed to the severity of the discipline if it was great?

That quote has a lot of wishful thinking behind it, but it may not be a far reach either.

arras

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for sharing.

kimi

Linschoten, I am under the impression that you can speak german so you can see the ZDF series "Die Deutschen" and "Die Deutschen II" if you like:

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/haupt...r-Klassenkampf

They also have the "Rosa Luxemburg und die Freiheit" and "Gustav Streeseman".

Here the whole second installment of the series: (since ZDF is publicly owned they put it online as soon as they air it)
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/haupt...e-Deutschen-II

didnt realize its already online. Too few time.

Linschoten

Thanks for the link, kimi; they seem to have a lot of interesting programmes there, I must look around properly when I have a moment.

beetle

Marx lived in obscurity in England until after the Paris Commune when he wrote The Civil War in France. That made him famous. (Initially he did not support the Paris uprising.) After he became famous, many people wished to visit him, particlularly journalists.

His "fame" or notoriety rested on a fear of him; he became the "red" threat, the secretive master behind an international organization that would overthrow society, and Marx bragged he had become the most "calumniated man in London."

None of this was true. Marx was indeed determined to be the sole leader of the International, but when he found out the squabbling members couldn't get along with each other, he kicked out Bakunin and his groupies and exiled the rest to New York. He then decided to retire to private life and work on his book Capital.

Unfortunately for him, he had acquired a notorious reputation, and many people wanted to meet this dread threat. Almost always they met a rather congenial fellow who had retired from active political life, which surprised his visitors as they were expecting to meet the rabid revolutionary who had written so heatedly about the overthrow of governments.

The letter you've provided is dated 1879. The full text of the Communist Manifesto had not even been published in English as of that date. His fame rested on the impression created by his Civil War in France and his earlier disputes with the governments of continental Europe, which consistently urged England to expel him. The English governments consistently refused, maintaining that free speech was not a crime, even when such speech included the possible assassination of non-English monarchs.

In short, most people who visited Marx expected to meet a monster, and instead met a rather congenial bookworm who seemed to pose no threat to anyone.

However, this was not also true. Marx had spent his whole life trying to bully and intimidate people. He lost all the friends of his youth, except for Engels. He grew that big beard on purpose because he knew it made his physical presence even more intimidating, beyond his acknowledged intellectual superiority (his family nickname was "Moor.") Near the end of his life, he got a hair cut and shaved off the beard, but allowed no more photos to be taken of him.

To understand Marxism, a person needs to understand Karl Marx himself. His socio-economic philosophy was a product of his tumultuous personality. Only after he lost the fire of his earlier years and decided to retire from life did he accept the many people who wished to meet him.

In regard to his ideas, he was a philosopher (after wishing to be a Romantic poet and writer of fiction; he maintained Capital was a work of "art.") He was not a historian, as his philosophy of history is completely wrong, and his economics he borrowed from Ricardo, etc., the "classic" economists, which he set out to do to them the same he set out to do to Hegel and Proudhon, which was to try to prove he knew better than they.

But Marx wrote in such a passionate style that it gripped people. Only a few could make heads or tails out of Capital, but many could understand his other writings. (He was the primary foreign correspondent for the, I think, the New York Tribune.)

If not for Lenin (and the earlier Russian Marxists Zasulich and Plekhanov) Marx might have been left in the dusty bookshelves of forgotten history along with many of those other 19th-century social revolutionary movements (there were dozens.) It was not Marx's economic or social ideas which attracted disciples, but his passionate calls for revolution.

These calls fell on deaf ears in countries like the UK where social legislation was possble. They caught fire in backward Russia and later areas where there was no possibility of legislation.

Linschoten

Thank you, that puts this episode very neatly in its context.