Giving you all the quotations that Marxists hope you never hear about

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ENGELS PREFERRED TO BE IN TROUBLE WITH THE POLICE RATHER THAN WORK

"I have allowed myself to be persuaded by the arguments of my brother-in-law [Emil Blank] and the doleful expression on both my parents’ faces to give huckstering another trial and for [...] days have been working in the office. Another motive was the course my love affair was taking. But I was sick of it all even before I began work; huckstering is too beastly, Barmen is too beastly, the waste of time is too beastly and most beastly of all is the fact of being, not only a bourgeois, but actually a manufacturer, a bourgeois who actively takes sides against the proletariat. A few days in my old man’s factory have sufficed to bring me face to face with this beastliness, which I had rather overlooked. I had, of course, planned to stay in the huckstering business only as long as it suited me and then to write something the police wouldn’t like so that I could with good grace make off across the border, but I can’t hold out even till then."


Source
posted by JR at 11:41 PM

 
I expect that this will be the last post on this blog for a while but readers with interesting quotes are welcome to send them in for possible posting.


GARY NORTH'S SUMMARY OF MARX:

The summary below accords with my reading of Marx. He hated everybody and that angry hatred has always been his chief attraction to Leftists. They instinctively recognize in him a kindred spirit.


"Karl Marx was the foremost hater and most incessant whiner in the history of Western Civilization. He was a spoiled, overeducated brat who never grew up; he just grew more shrill as he grew older. His lifelong hatred and whining have led to the deaths (so far) of perhaps a hundred million people, depending on how many people perished under Mao’s tyranny. We will probably never know.

Whiners, if given power, readily become tyrants. Marx was seen by his contemporaries as a potential tyrant. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-72), the Italian revolutionary, and a rival of Marx’s in the International Workingmen’s Association in the mid- 1860’s, once described Marx as “a destructive spirit whose heart was filled with hatred rather than love of mankind . . . extraordinarily sly, shifty and taciturn. Marx is very jealous of his authority as leader of the Party; against his political rivals and opponents he is vindictive and implacable; he does not rest until he has beaten them down; his overriding characteristic is boundless ambition and thirst for power. Despite the communist egalitarianism which he preaches he is the absolute ruler of his party; admittedly he does everything himself but he is also the only one to give orders and he tolerates no opposition"

Source (PDF)
posted by JR at 5:46 PM

 
THE PROPHETIC WORDS OF (ANARCHIST) MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Written in 1872

The reasoning of Marx ends in absolute contradiction. Taking into account only the economic question, he insists that only the most advanced countries, those in which capitalist production has attained greatest development, are the most capable of making social revolution. These civilized countries, to the exclusion of all others, are the only ones destined to initiate and carry through this revolution. This revolution will expropriate either by peaceful, gradual, or by violent means, the present property owners and capitalists. To appropriate all the landed property and capital, and to carry out its extensive economic and political programs, the revolutionary State will have to be very powerful and highly centralized. The State will administer and direct the cultivation of the land, by means of its salaried officials commanding armies of rural workers organized and disciplined for this purpose. At the same time, on the ruins of the existing banks, it will establish a single state bank which will finance all labor and national commerce.

It is readily apparent how such a seemingly simple plan of organization can excite the imagination of the workers, who are as eager for justice as they are for freedom; and who foolishly imagine that the one can exist without the other; as if, in order to conquer and consolidate justice and equality, one could depend on the efforts of others, particularly on governments, regardless of how they may be elected or controlled, to speak and act for the people! For the proletariat this will, in reality, be nothing but a barracks: a regime, where regimented workingmen and women will sleep, wake, work, and live to the beat of a drum; where the shrewd and educated will be granted government privileges; and where the mercenary-minded, attracted by the immensity of the international speculations of the state bank, will find a vast field for lucrative, underhanded dealings.

There will be slavery within this state, and abroad there will be war without truce, at least until the “inferior” races, Latin and Slav, tired of bourgeois civilization, no longer resign themselves to the subjection of a State, which will be even more despotic than the former State, although it calls itself a People’s State.

Context here
posted by JR at 6:06 PM

 


I have now finished the quotes from Marx that I wanted to put up but I still have a few quotes about Marx from others that may be of interest:


EVEN MARX'S KINDLY FATHER SUSPECTED THAT KARL WAS NOT MUCH OF A HUMAN BEING

Written when Karl was still only 19. Heinrich seems to have been a decent and generous guy. It must have pained him greatly to see how his son turned out.

Letter from Heinrich Marx to son Karl, written in Trier, March 2, 1837: "It is remarkable that I, who am by nature a lazy writer, become quite inexhaustible when I have to write to you. I will not and cannot conceal my weakness for you. At times my heart delights in thinking of you and your future. And yet at times I cannot rid myself of ideas which arouse in me sad forebodings and fear when I am struck as if by lightning by the thought: is your heart in accord with your head, your talents? Has it room for the earthly but gentler sentiments which in this vale of sorrow are so essentially consoling for a man of feeling? And since that heart is obviously animated and governed by a demon not granted to all men, is that demon heavenly or Faustian? Will you ever -- and that is not the least painful doubt of my heart -- will you ever be capable of truly human, domestic happiness? Will -- and this doubt has no less tortured me recently since I have come to love a certain person [Jenny von Westfalen] like my own child -- will you ever be capable of imparting happiness to those immediately around you?

What has evoked this train of ideas in me, you will ask ? Often before, anxious thoughts of this kind have come into my mind, but I easily chased them away, for I always felt the need to surround you with all the love and care of which my heart is capable, and I always like to forget. But I note a striking phenomenon in Jenny. She, who is so wholly devoted to you with her childlike, pure disposition, betrays at times, involuntarily and against her will, a kind of fear, a fear laden with foreboding, which does not escape me, which I do not know how to explain, and all trace of which she tried to erase from my heart, as soon as I pointed it out to her. What does that mean, what can it be? I cannot explain it to myself, but unfortunately my experience does not allow me to be easily led astray.

Context here


posted by JR at 6:13 PM

 
ENGELS ADVOCATES THAT GERMANY DEFEAT FRANCE BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE

Engels to August Bebel In Berlin, 19 September, 1891: "In any case we must declare that since 1871 we have always been ready for a peaceful understanding with France, that as soon as our Party comes to power it will be unable to exercise that power unless Alsace-Lorraine freely determines its own future, but that if war is forced upon us, and moreover a war in alliance with Russia, we must regard this as an attack on our existence and defend ourselves by every method, utilising all positions at our disposal and therefore Metz and Strasbourg also..... so our army will have to lead and sustain the main push.... So much seems certain to me: if we are beaten, every barrier to chauvinism and a war of revenge in Europe will be thrown down for years hence. If we are victorious our Party will come into power. The victory of Germany is therefore the victory of the revolution, and if it comes to war we must not only desire victory but further it by every means...."

Context here


posted by JR at 5:27 PM

 
ENGELS FORESAW AND WELCOMED WORLD WAR

Engels, London, December 15, 1887: “. . . No war is any longer possible for Prussia-Germany except a world war and a world war indeed of an extent and violence hitherto undreamt of. Eight to ten millions of soldiers will massacre one another and in doing so devour the whole of Eurepe until they have stripped it barer than any swarm of locusts has ever done. The devastations of the Thirty Years’ War compressed into three or four years, and spread over the whole Continent; famine, pestilence, general demoralisation both of the armies and of the mass of the people produced by acute distress; hopeless confusion of our artificial machinery in trade, industry and credit, ending in general bankruptcy; collapse of the old states and their traditional state wisdom to such an extent that crowns will roll by dozens on the pavement and there will be no body to pick them up; absolute impossibility of foreseeing how it will all end and who will come out of the struggle as victor; only one result is absolutely certain: general exhaustion and the establishment of the conditions for the ultimate victory of the working class.

“This is the prospect when the system of mutual outbidding in armaments, taken to the final extreme, at last bears its inevitable fruits. This, my lords, princes and statesmen, is where in your wisdom you have brought old Europe. And when nothing more remains to you but to open the last great war dance—that will suit us all right (uns kann es recht sein ). The war may perhaps push us temporarily into the background, may wrench from us many a position already conquered. But when you have unfettered forces which you will then no longer be able again to control, things may go as they will: at the end of the tragedy you will be ruined and the victory of the proletariat will either be already achieved or at any rate (doch ) inevitable".

Some context here
posted by JR at 8:24 PM

 
MARX SAW FUTURE WARS AS RACE WARS

And Hitler again waged exactly the war that Marx predicted

Marx, SECOND ADDRESS On The War To the Members of the International Working-Men’s Association, 1870: "If the fortune of her arms, the arrogance of success, and dynastic intrigue lead Germany to a spoliation of French territory, there will then only remain two courses open to her. She must at all risks become the avowed tool of Russian aggrandisement, or, after some short respite, make again ready for another “defensive” war, not one of those new-fangled “localised” wars, but a war of races — a war with the combined Slavonian and Roman races".

Context here
posted by JR at 8:24 PM

 
MARX: GERMANS SHOULD THRASH THE FRENCH

I guess Hitler got that message too

Marx to Engels, July 20, 1870: "The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the centralisation of the state power will be useful for the centralisation of the German working class. German predominance would also transfer the centre of gravity of the workers' movement in Western Europe from France to Germany, and one has only to compare the movement in the two countries from 1866 till now to see that the German working class is superior to the French both theoretically and organisationally. Their predominance over the French on the world stage would also mean the predominance of our theory over Proudhon's, etc."

Context here


posted by JR at 5:47 PM

 
WAR AGAINST RUSSIA A GOOD THING FOR GERMANY

And Hitler carried it out

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 42, July 12, 1848: "Only a war against Russia would be a war of revolutionary Germany, a war by which she could cleanse herself of her past sins, could take courage, defeat her own autocrats, spread civilisation by the sacrifice of her own sons as becomes a people that is shaking off the chains of long, indolent slavery"

It is not clear whether it was Marx or Engels that wrote this. Context here
posted by JR at 8:04 PM

 
MARX THOUGHT WAR WAS A GOOD THING

As did many others in the 19th and early 20th centuries -- including Mussolini, Hitler and "Progressive" U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

Marx, Sept 24, 1855: "The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality".

(Full context for this quote does not appear to be available online but it is mentioned in various places on the net -- e.g. here. See also Collected Works, vol. 14, p. 516)


posted by JR at 5:07 PM

 
ENGELS MAKES IT CLEAR WHAT HE MEANS BY "NIGGER"

Marx's second daughter, Laura, married Paul Lafargue who, Engels said, had "one eighth or one twelfth Nigger blood". In 1887, Paul was a candidate for the Paris Municipal Council, in a district which contained the Jardin des Plantes and the Zoo. In a letter to Laura (April 26, 1887), Engels referred to:

"Paul, the candidate of the Jardin des Plantes - and the animals" and added: "Being in his quality as a nigger a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district."

This letter (in German translation) is in Marx & Engels Werke vol. 36, 1967, p. 645. It is not online but is mentioned here
posted by JR at 5:42 PM

 
ENGELS WAS CONTEMPTUOUS OF "NIGGERS"

Letter from Engels to Marx, October 2, 1866: "I have arrived at the conviction that there is nothing to his [Tremaux's] theory if for no other reason than because he neither understands geology nor is capable of the most ordinary literary historical criticism. One could laugh oneself sick about his stories of the nigger Santa Maria and of the transmutations of the whites into Negroes. Especially, that the traditions of the Senegal niggers deserve absolute credulity, just because the rascals cannot write! . . . Perhaps this man will prove in the second volume, how he explains the fact, that we Rhinelanders have not long ago turned into idiots and niggers on our own Devonian Transition rocks . . . Or perhaps he will maintain that we are real niggers."

(Not fully online. Source: Quoted by Diane Paul, "'In the Interests of Civilization': Marxist Views of Race and Culture in the Nineteenth Century", Journal of the History of Ideas, Jan-March 1981, p 123. [Werke, Vol. 31, p 256.])

Note that Engels uses both the neutral term "negroes" and the derogatory "nigger". So he clearly knew what the different implications of the two terms were. "Nigger" was not as verboten in the 19th century as it is now but it was still derogatory -- and it is presumably because of that aspect of the word that both Marx and Engels used what is after all an English word in their German writings.

To undersrtand what Engels was talking about, one needs to realize that both Marx and Engels were Lamarckians -- they believed that acquired characteristics could be inherited. That fact is no doubt part of the reason why Stalin so heavily sponsored the ideas of the Lamarckian Trofim Lysenko right into the 20th century -- long after Lamarckian theories had been generally discredited in the West. And the particular strand of Lamarckian thinking that appealed most strongly to both Marx and Engels was that the type of soil and landscape in which a nation grew up could influence their national character. Just what the relationship between geology and national characteristics was, however, they did not fully agree. The following commentary on the matter may also be helpful:

To cite one final anecdote, the scholarly literature frequently cites Marx's great enthusiasm (until the more scientifically savvy Engels set him straight) for a curious book, published in 1865 by the now (and deservedly) unknown French explorer and ethnologist Pierre Tremaux, Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres etres (Origin and transformation of man and other beings). Marx professed ardent admiration for this work, proclaiming it "einen Fortschritt uber Darwin" (an advance over Darwin). The more sober Engels bought the book at Marx's urging, but then dampened his friend's ardor by writing: "I have arrived at the conclusion that there is nothing to his theory if for no other reason than because he neither understands geology nor is capable of the most ordinary literary historical criticism."

I had long been curious about Tremaux and sought a copy of his book for many years. I finally purchased one a few years ago--and I must say that I have never read a more absurd or more poorly documented thesis. Basically, Tremaux argues that the nature of the soil determines national characteristics and that higher civilizations tend to arise on more complex soils formed in later geological periods. If Marx really believed that such unsupported nonsense could exceed the Origin of Species in importance, then he could not have properly understood or appreciated the power of Darwin's facts and ideas.

More here

posted by JR at 6:19 PM

 
MARX SUPPORTED BLACK SLAVERY IN AMERICA

Letter from Marx to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, 1846: "As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America.

Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. Without slavery there would be no cotton, without cotton there would be no modern industry. It is slavery which has given value to the colonies, it is the colonies which have created world trade, and world trade is the necessary condition for large-scale machine industry. Consequently, prior to the slave trade, the colonies sent very few products to the Old World, and did not noticeably change the face of the world. Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance. Without slavery, North America, the most progressive nation, would he transformed into a patriarchal country. Only wipe North America off the map and you will get anarchy, the complete decay of trade and modern civilisation. But to do away with slavery would be to wipe America off the map. Being an economic category, slavery has existed in all nations since the beginning of the world. All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and import it openly into the New World"

Context here
posted by JR at 5:02 PM

 
ENGELS APPROVES OF ANTISEMITISM

Engels to Paul Lafargue, July 22, 1892: "I begin to understand French anti-Semitism when I see how many Jews of Polish origin and with German names intrude themselves everywhere, arrogate everything to themselves and push themselves forward to the point of creating public opinion in the ville lumiere [Paris], of which the Paris philistine is so proud and which he believes to be the supreme power in the universe."

(Not online but found in Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol iii, Moscow. p 184.)
posted by JR at 8:19 PM

 
ENGELS: POLISH JEWS GET A BLAST

Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1886 Appendix to the American Edition: "The pettifogging business-tricks of the Polish Jew, the representative in Europe of commerce in its lowest stage, those tricks that serve him so well in his own country, and are generally practiced there, he finds to be out of date and out of place when he comes to Hamburg or Berlin"

Context here
posted by JR at 4:58 PM

 
MARX SUPPORTED BRITISH RULE OVER INDIA

Marx, New-York Daily Tribune, June 25, 1853: "England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindoostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution".

Context here
posted by JR at 5:42 PM

 
ENGELS CELEBRATED THE CONQUEST OF NORTH AFRICAN ARABS BY THE FRENCH

For once I think he was right

Engels in The Northern Star January 22, 1848: "Upon the whole it is, in our opinion, very fortunate that the Arabian chief has been taken. The struggle of the Bedouins was a hopeless one, and though the manner in which brutal soldiers, like Bugeaud, have carried on the war is highly blamable, the conquest of Algeria is an important and fortunate fact for the progress of civilisation. The piracies of the Barbaresque states, never interfered with by the English government as long as they did not disturb their ships, could not be put down but by the conquest of one of these states. And the conquest of Algeria has already forced the Beys of Tunis and Tripoli, and even the Emperor of Morocco, to enter upon the road of civilisation. They were obliged to find other employment for their people than piracy, and other means of filling their exchequer than tributes paid to them by the smaller states of Europe. And if we may regret that the liberty of the Bedouins of the desert has been destroyed, we must not forget that these same Bedouins were a nation of robbers, — whose principal means of living consisted of making excursions either upon each other, or upon the settled villagers, taking what they found, slaughtering all those who resisted, and selling the remaining prisoners as slaves. All these nations of free barbarians look very proud, noble and glorious at a distance, but only come near them and you will find that they, as well as the more civilised nations, are ruled by the lust of gain"

Context here


posted by JR at 6:08 PM

 
MARX: SLANDERING BOTH JEWS AND NEGROES IN ONE BREATH

I excerpt the statement below from a comment in Front Page Magazine:

Marx, as we all know, was as rabid a foe of Judaism and Christianity as were his spiritual godfathers, Voltaire and the other Enlightenment philosophers.... Marx remains the greatest advocate of the "naturalistic worldview" in modern times. He was a true "bright"; a child of the "Enlightenment". In this passage from a letter written to Engels in 1862, he criticized his political opponent, the French Socialist Ferdinand LaSalle:

I now see clearly that he is descended, as the shape of his head and his hair clearly indicate, from the Negroes who were joined to the Jews at the time of the exodus from Egypt ( unless it was his mother or paternal grandmother who mated with a Negro). But this mixture of Judaism and Germanism with a negro substance as a base was bound to yield a most curious product. The importunity of the man also is negroid...One of the great discoveries of this Negro, which he confided to me, is that the Pelasgians are descended from the Semites. His main proof is that, according to the Book of Maccabees, the Jews sent messenger to Greece to ask for help and appealed to their tribal relationship..."

The above passage is interesting in three respects; it unmasks Marx's prejudices, it shows he was well within the mainstream of the "scientific" racists of his day, and also shows his willingness to slander and vilify a political opponent. This says much about one of the greatest, if not the greatest, propagandists for the "naturalistic worldview". .... You continue to evade the fact that the United States of America was founded upon Judeo-Christian values, and the liberty you so cherish is the gift of the Judeo-Christian culture you, like Voltaire and Marx, despise. The U.S is not, I repeat not, a nation with a "naturalistic worldview". That distinction is reserved for places like the former USSR, the PRC, Cuba, etc. Frankly, since Cuba is only 90 miles from our shores I wonder you and your ilk don't go there.

Context for the Marx quote above is here -- at the end of the letter to Engels and in a postscript to the letter. The translations differ slightly, however.
posted by JR at 5:40 PM

 
MARX: NEGROES A DEGENERATE TYPE

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1866: "For certain questions, such as nationality, etc., only here has a basis in nature been found. E.g., he [Tremaux] corrects the Pole Duchinski, whose version of the geological differences between Russia and the Western Slav lands he does incidentally confirm, by saying not that the Russians are Tartars rather than Slavs, etc., as the latter believes, but that on the surface-formation predominant in Russia the Slav has been tartarised and mongolised; likewise (he spent a long time in Africa) he shows that the common negro type is only a degeneration of a far higher one".

Context here
posted by JR at 5:08 PM

 
MARX THOUGHT THAT RUSSIANS WERE REALLY ASIATIC AND SHOULD BE CHASED OUT OF RUSSIA

And Hitler tried to do it. Like Hitler, Marx saw race as a criterion of entitlement

Marx to Engels, 1865: "It has ditto been shown geologically and hydrographically that a great ‘Asiatic’ difference occurs east of the Dnieper, compared with what lies to the west of it, and that (as Murchison has already maintained) the Urals by no means constitute a dividing line. Result as obtained by Duchinski: Russia is a name usurped by the Muscovites. They are not Slavs; they do not belong to the Indo-Germanic race at all, they are des intrus [intruders], who must be chased back across the Dnieper, etc."

Context here
posted by JR at 5:49 PM

 
ENGELS WAS PRO-AMERICAN

Marx, Engels and Hitler were all favourably disposed towards their "racial brethren" in Britain and the USA. It was Slavs whom they really despised. So it is a considerable irony that a Slavic nation was the first to take up Marxism in a big way and that it was primarily the same Slavic nation that defeated Hitler

Engels in Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung 1848: "In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it. It is also an advance when a country which has hitherto been exclusively wrapped up in its own affairs, perpetually rent with civil wars, and completely hindered in its development, a country whose best prospect had been to become industrially subject to Britain — when such a country is forcibly drawn into the historical process. It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will in future be placed under the tutelage of the United States. The evolution of the whole of America will profit by the fact that the United States, by the possession of California, obtains command of the Pacific"

Context here


posted by JR at 6:56 PM

 
MARX: CONTEMPT FOR INDIANS

But he thought British were superior and that their rule was a good thing

Marx, New-York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853: "Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton.....

The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to Hindoo civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the native society. The historic pages of their rule in India report hardly anything beyond that destruction. The work of regeneration hardly transpires through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun.

The political unity of India, more consolidated, and extending farther than it ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first condition of its regeneration. That unity, imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph. The native army, organized and trained by the British drill-sergeant, was the sine qua non of Indian self-emancipation, and of India ceasing to be the prey of the first foreign intruder. The free press, introduced for the first time into Asiatic society, and managed principally by the common offspring of Hindoos and Europeans, is a new and powerful agent of reconstruction".

Context here


posted by JR at 5:41 PM

 
NO PAST AND NO FUTURE FOR THE SLAVS

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222, February 1849: "We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs, no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for independence and viability. Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization already came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of civilization only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be able to achieve any kind of independence. And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect of language and history, have never had a history of their own"

Context here


posted by JR at 7:22 PM

 
BOTH MARX AND ENGELS THOUGHT THAT THE CHINESE SUFFERED FROM HEREDITARY STUPIDITY

I guess Chairman Mao did not read these bits!

Marx, "Revolution in China and in Europe" (May 20, 1853): "It is almost needless to observe that, in the same measure in which opium has obtained the sovereignty over the Chinese, the Emperor and his staff of pedantic mandarins have become dispossessed of their own sovereignty. It would seem as though history had first to make this whole people drunk before it could rouse them out of their hereditary stupidity".



Engels, "Persia and China" (June 5,1857): "... China, the rotting semi-civilization of the oldest State in the world . . . In short, instead of moralizing on the horrible atrocities of the Chinese, as the chivalrous English press does, we had better recognize that this is a war pro aris et focis, a popular war for the maintenance of Chinese nationality, with all its overbearing prejudice, stupidity, learned ignorance and pedantic barbarism . . .

Context for the quote from Marx is here

The latter part of the quote from Engels is online here but the rest is not freely online. See Marx & Engels On Colonialism, 6th printing, Moscow, 1976, pp. 120 & 124.
posted by JR at 5:31 PM

 
OUR HATE-FILLED ENGELS DESPISED THE IRISH TOO

(At least Engels had TWO master races in his thinking: Germans and Hungarians ("Magyars"))

Engels: The condition of the working class in England, 1892 "The southern facile character of the Irishman, his crudity, which places him but little above the savage, his contempt for all humane enjoyments, in which his very crudeness makes him incapable of sharing, his filth and poverty, all favour drunkeness. . . . the pressure of this race has done much to depress wages and lower the working-class. . . . That poverty manifests itself in Ireland thus and not otherwise, is owing to the character of the people, and to their historical development. The Irish are a people related in their whole character to the Latin nations, to the French, and especially to the Italians.... With the Irish, feeling and passion predominate; reason must bow before them. Their sensuous, excitable nature prevents reflection and quiet, persevering activity from reaching development -- such a nation is utterly unfit for manufacture as now conducted. . . . Irish distress cannot be removed by any Act of Repeal. Such an Act would, however, at once lay bare the fact that the cause of Irish misery, which now seems to come from abroad is really to be found at home"

Context here
posted by JR at 4:40 PM

 
ENGELS: CONTEMPT FOR SCANDINAVIANS TOO

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung September 1848; "Scandinavianism is enthusiasm for the brutal, sordid, piratical, Old Norse national traits, for that profound inner life which is unable to express its exuberant ideas and sentiments in words, but can express them only in deeds, namely, in rudeness towards women, perpetual drunkenness and the wild frenzy of the Berserker alternating with tearful sentimentality".

Context here
posted by JR at 7:39 AM

 
ENGELS DESPISED THE WHOLE OF THE BALKANS -- INCLUDING THE GREEKS

Engels to August Bebel, November 17, 1885. "These wretched, ruined fragments of one-time nations, the Serbs, Bulgars, Greeks, and other robber bands, or, behalf of which the liberal philistine waxes enthusiastic in the interests of Russia, are unwilling to grant each other the air they breathe, and feel obliged to cut each other's greedy throats... the lousy Balkan peoples . . . ".

(Not online. From Marx-Engels, Briefe an A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, K. Kautsky und Andere, Moscow, 1933, pp 411, 412; translation by Bertram D. Wolfe, Marxism, 1967, p 68.)
posted by JR at 5:20 PM

 
ENGELS: SLAVS ARE INFERIOR AND DESERVE TO BE OPPRESSED BY GERMANS AND THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE

Neue Rheinische Zeitung February 1849: "And if during eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer the yoke imposed on them by the four million Magyars, that alone sufficiently proves which was the more viable and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars! .... what a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a "historical necessity", the Germans and Magyars untied all these small, stunted and impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken. But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable ruthlessness... In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the Germans and Magyars against the said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the Magyar people can boast in their history".

Context here
posted by JR at 5:12 PM

 
MORE TALK OF INFERIOR RACES

Marx, "British Politics" (April 7, 1853), Collected Works, Vol. 112, p.7: "The real point at issue always is, Turkey in Europe--the great peninsula to the south of the Save and Danube. This splendid territory has the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and nationalities, of which it is hard to say which is the least fit for progress and civilization."

Context here
posted by JR at 5:00 PM

 
MARX ON GERMAN NATIONAL SUPERIORITY

Marx, 1852. "Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany". Collected Works vol. 11, pp. 47, 71: "Neither Bohemia nor Croatia was strong enough to exist as a nation by herself. Their respective nationalities, gradually undermined by the action of historical causes that inevitably absorbs into a more energetic stock, could only hope to be restored to anything like independence by an alliance with other Slavonic nations.....

Scattered remnants of numerous nations, whose nationality and political vitality had long been extinguished .... the same as the Welsh in England, the Basques in Spain, the Bas-Bretons in France, and at a more recent period the Spanish and French Creoles in those portions of North America occupied of late by the Anglo-American race —these dying nationalities, the Bohemians, Carinthians, Dalmatians, etc., had tried.... to restore their political status quo of A. D. 800. The history of a thousand years ought to have shown them that such a retrogression was impossible.... this fact merely proved the historical tendency, and at the same time physical and intellectual power of the German nation to subdue, absorb, and assimilate its ancient eastern neighbors; that this tendency of absorption on the part of the Germans had always been, and still was one of the mightiest means by which the civilization of Western Europe had been spread in the east of that continent.... and that, therefore, the natural and inevitable fate of these dying nations was to allow this process of dissolution and absorption by their stronger neighbors to complete itself".

Context here and here.
posted by JR at 4:23 PM

 
ENGELS DESPISED THE RUSSIANS

Engels. "Democratic Pan-Slavism" (NRZ February 16. 1849), Collected Works, Vol. 8 p 378. ". . . hatred of Russia was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution, hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution."

(No Marxist seems to have put this online. I can't imagine why!)
posted by JR at 5:52 PM

 
RACES EXIST NATURALLY BUT EUGENICS CAN AND SHOULD ABOLISH THEM

Marx & Engels, "The German Ideology", Chap. 3: "He has not the slightest idea that the ability of children to develop depends on the development of their parents and that all this crippling under existing social relations has arisen historically, and in the same way can be abolished again in the course of historical development. Even naturally evolved differences within the species, such as racial differences, etc., which Sancho does not mention at all, can and must be abolished in the course of historical development. Sancho — who in this connection casts a stealthy glance at zoology and so makes the discovery that “innate limited intellects” form the most numerous class not only among sheep and oxen, but also among polyps and infusoria, which have no heads at all — has perhaps heard that it is possible to improve races of animals and by cross-breeding to create entirely new, more perfect varieties both for human enjoyment and for their own self-enjoyment.. “Why should not” Sancho be able to draw a conclusion from this in relation to people as well?"

Context here
posted by JR at 6:19 PM

 
ENGELS: RACE A DETERMINING FACTOR IN HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Engels: (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 502.): "We regard economic conditions as the factor which ultimately determines historical development. But race is itself an economic factor".

Context here

German reference: "Brief an W. Borgius" 25.1.1894. MEW, Bd. 39, S. 205. (Not apparently online).
posted by JR at 5:46 PM

 
ENGELS THOUGHT ARYANS WERE SUPERIOR

"The plentiful meat and milk diet among the Aryans and the Semites, and particularly the beneficial effects of these foods on the development of children, may, perhaps, explain the superior development of these two races."

No Marxist has dared to put this online yet so I cannot provide a link for context. The quotation is from Engels, "Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", Fourth revised edition, 1891, in Marx & Engels, Selected Works In One Volume, Lawrence & Wishart: London, 1980, p 464.
posted by JR at 5:47 PM

 
ENGELS: NATIVE BLACKS DUMBER THAN AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD

Engels. "Notes to Anti-Duehring": "On the other hand, modern natural science has extended the principle of the origin of all thought content from experience in a way that breaks down its old metaphysical limitation and formulation. By recognising the inheritance of acquired characters, it extends the subject of experience from the individual to the genus; the single individual that must have experienced is no longer necessary, its individual experience can be replaced to a certain extent by the results of the experiences of a number of its ancestors. If, for instance, among us the mathematical axioms seem self-evident to every eight-year-old child, and in no need of proof from experience, this is solely the result of "accumulated inheritance." It would be difficult to teach them by a proof to a bushman or Australian negro".

Context here
posted by JR at 5:05 PM

 
CAPACITY FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DEPENDS ON RACE

Well, the hiatus did not last long! I have just dug up out of my files another set of famous Marx words that I will gradually put online. The first is below. I will not this time bother with digging up the original German.

Capital, vol. 3, chapter 47: "The possibility is here presented for definite economic development taking place, depending, of course, upon favourable circumstances, inborn racial characteristics, etc."

Context here
posted by JR at 7:45 PM

 
FINIS

I have now come to the end of the Marx & Engels quotations that I intended to feature. So any further posts on this blog will be dependant on readers sending me any favourite quotations of theirs that I might have missed.

The one thing that does to my mind stand out in the quotations below is the utter hatred and contempt Marx had for just about everybody. Like the Greenies of today, Marx despised people generally (see my post of 7th March), he despised poor people (24th Feb.), he was utterly contemptuous of the Russians (2nd Feb) and he even showed contempt for his fellow Germans (post of 15th March). And he was of course both a social Darwinist and a racist (16th and 21st Feb). He even had contempt for his mother (31st Jan.) and his antisemitic utterances are too numerous to mention. He also advocated race-war (30th Jan,). I could go on ....

Engels is similarly hate-filled but the gloom is in his case slightly relieved by his passionate German nationalism (e.g. post of 12th Feb.). Like Hitler, the one love Engels seemed to have was a love for his German nation.

I believe that it is this constant undercurrent of hatred and anger in the works of Marx that accounts for his appeal to Leftists generally. Whatever they think of his theories or what he says in detail is secondary. The main attraction is that they recognize a kindred spirit bubbling up with hatred and anger when they come across one.

And this lack of the milk of human kindness was conspicuous in Lenin too. Take this quotation from a speech that Lenin gave in the earliest days of Bolshevik power:

"The Congress therefore declares that it recognises the primary and fundamental task of our Party, of the entire vanguard of the class-conscious proletariat and of Soviet power, to be the adoption of the most energetic, ruthlessly determined and Draconian measures to improve the self-discipline and discipline of the workers and peasants of Russia, to explain the inevitability of Russia’s historic advance towards a socialist, patriotic war of liberation, to create everywhere soundly co-ordinated mass organisations held together by a single iron will".

No pussy-footing there: "Draconian measures" to discipline the workers and the need to bend them to "a single iron will". It is well in line with Hegel's vision of an antlike future for humanity but pitiless power is its its theme and respect for the individual is not even thought of. Compare it with Mussolini's definition of the Fascist ideal: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" (Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State) or Hitler's famous slogan: "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuehrer" (One State, One People, One Leader). There's not a dime's worth of difference.

And this quote is very obviously another part of the same tradition: "If we are to go forward we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because, without such discipline, no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good".

So who said that? It's mainstream Fascism/Marxism, isn't it? Totally submerging the individual into an army that works only for the common good rather than individual good. It is an excerpt from the First Inaugural Address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Some things never change.
posted by JR at 6:11 PM

 
ENGELS SAW RUSSIANS AS DUMB

Engels, The Armies of Europe: "But up to the present time, the Russians of all classes are too fundamentally barbarous to find any enjoyment in scientific or intellectual pursuits of any kind (except intrigues), and, therefore, almost all their distinguished men in the military service are either foreigners, or, what nearly amounts to the same, “ostzeïski,” Germans from the Baltic provinces. So was the last and most distinguished specimen of this class, General Todtleben, the chief engineer at Sebastopol, who died in July from the effects of a wound. He was certainly the cleverest man at his trade in the whole siege, either in the Russian or the Allied camp; but he was a Baltic German, of Prussian extraction.

Context here


Some of the German

Engels, „Die Armeen Europas“, Putnam’s Monthly, No. XXXIII, September 1855

"Aber bis zum heutigen Tage sind die Russen aller Klassen viel zu barbarisch, um an wissenschaftlicher oder geistiger Tätigkeit irgendwelcher Art (ausser Intrigen) Gefallen zu finden (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 11, 452.
posted by JR at 5:42 PM

 
ENGELS PARANOID ABOUT THE SLAVS

Engels, “Germany and Pan-Slavism”, 1855: "The Slavic race, long divided by inner struggles, pushed back to the east by the Germans, subjugated in part by Germans, Turks and Hungarians, silently re-uniting its branches after 1815 by the gradual growth of Pan-Slavism, it now makes sure of its unity for the first time, and with that declares war to-the-death on the Roman-Celtic and German races, who have ruled Europe until now."

Listed, but with no translation here


The German

Engels, "Deutschland und der Panslawismus", 1855

"Die slawische Race, lang geteilt durch innere Zwiste, nach dem Osten zurückgetrieben durch die Deutschen, unterjocht, zum Teil von Deutschen, Türken und Ungarn, still ihre Zweige wiedervereinend, nach 1815, durch das allmähliche Wachstum des Panslawismus, sie versichert nun zum ersten Mal ihre Einheit und erklärt damit Krieg auf den Tod den römisch-keltischen und deutschen Racen, die bisher in Europa geherrscht haben."

MEW a.a.O. 11, 198,f.
posted by JR at 6:05 PM

 
MARX PRIVATELY ADMITS HIS OWN JEWISH ORIGINS AND RIDICULES DISRAELI'S ANGLICANISM

(In a letter to his uncle)

Marx to Lion Philips, November 29, 1864: "At a public meeting this week the fellow-member of our race Benjamin Disraeli has again made a dreadful laughing-stock of himself by assuming the mantle of guardian angel of the High Church and Church rates, repudiating criticism in religious affairs. He furnishes the best evidence of how a great talent unaccompanied by conviction creates rogues, albeit gold-braided and 'Right Honorable' ones."

Context here


The German

Marx an Lion Philips, 29. November 1864

„unser Stammesgenosse Benjamin Disraeli hat sich in dieser Woche wieder sehr blamiert, indem er als warnender Schutzengel der high church, der church rates und als Abwehrer gegen Kritik in religiösen Dingen sich auf einem öffentlichen Meeting breitmachte. Er ist der beste Beweis, wie großes Talent ohne Überzeugung Lumpen schafft (…)“

MEW, a.a.O. 31, 432.
posted by JR at 11:12 PM

 
MORE BELIEF IN WAR AS AN IMPROVING INFLUENCE

Marx to Engels, 12. September 1863: “Our fatherland looks damned pitiful. Without a thrashing from outside nothing can be achieved with these sons-of-bitches.”

From the letter about Lapinski


The German

Marx an Engels, 12. September 1863

„Unser Vaterland sieht gottsjämmerlich aus. Ohne Keile von außen ist mit diesen Hunden nichts anzufangen.“

MEW a.a.O. 30, 370.
posted by JR at 7:42 PM

 
MARX HAD CONTEMPT FOR EVERYBODY -- EVEN HIS FELLOW GERMANS

What he says below is actually pretty good compared to what he says about other nationalities

Marx to J.P. Becker, 26 Feb., 1862: "You should know that the Germans, young and old, are merely self-important, solid men of a practical bent, who consider people like you and me immature fools who still have not been cured of their revolutionary delusions. And the domestic riff-raff is as bad as the foreign kind. (…) Add to that their spent souls - a good thrashing is the only way to resurrect the German Joe (…)"

Listed, but with no translation here


The German

Marx an Johann Philipp Becker, 26. Februar 1862

„Sie müssen wissen, daß die Deutschen, jung und alt, lauter überkluge, gediegene, praktisch einsichtige Männer sind, die Leute wie Sie und mich für unreife Narren halten, die immer noch nicht von der Revolutionsphantasterei geheilt sind. Und so schlimm wie im Ausland ist das inländische Gesindel. (...)
Dazu diese Seelenmattigkeit -- Prügel ist das einzige Resurrektionsmittel für den deutschen Michel (...)

MEW a.a.O. 30, 619
posted by JR at 6:20 PM

 
MARX WELCOMED ECONOMIC RECESSION

Engels to Marx, October 29, 1857: "The American crash is wonderful and not over by a long shot. We still have to see the collapse of the majority of the import firms, so far just a few seem to have crashed. The effect on England seems also to have started in the Liverpool Borough-Bank. Tant mieux (so much the better)"

Context here


The German

Engels an Marx, 29. Oktober 1857

„Der American crash ist herrlich und noch lange nicht vorbei. Den Sturz der Masse der Importhäuser haben wir noch zu erwarten, bis jetzt scheinen nur einzelne gefallen zu sein. Die Rückwirkung auf England scheint auch in der Liverpooler Borough-Bank eröffnet. Tant mieux.

MEW a.a. O. 29, 204.
posted by JR at 6:30 PM

 
MARX THOUGHT WAR WAS A HEALTHY INFLUENCE

Marx, Engels, “The Boring War”, 1854: “Even with Europe in decay, still a war should have roused the healthy elements; a war should have awakened a lot of hidden powers, and surely so much energy would have been present among 250 million people that at least a respectable battle would have occurred, in which both parties could have reaped some honor, as much honor as courage and bravery can gain on the battlefield.”

Source (In German only). This was originally published in English but the original seems to be unavailable. The quote above is translated from the German.


The German

Marx, Engels, „Der langweilige Krieg“, 1854

„Mag Europa verfault sein, ein Krieg hätte jedoch die gesunden Elemente aufrütteln müssen; ein Krieg hätte manche verborgenen Kräfte wecken müssen, und sicherlich wären unter 250 Millionen Menschen soviel Energie vorhanden gewesen, daß wenigstens ein ordentlicher Kampf zustande gekommen wäre, in dem beide Parteien etwas Ehre geerntet hätten, soviel wie Mut und Tapferkeit eben auf dem Schlachtfeld zu erringen vermögen.“

MEW a.a.O. 10, 379
posted by JR at 5:28 PM

 
MARX EXPLOITED HIS ELDERLY FATHER FINANCIALLY

Heinrich Marx to son Karl, 10 February 1838: "(...) ,and I do not deny that at times I reproach myself with having left you all too loose a rein in this respect. Thus we are now in the fourth month of the law year and you have already drawn 280 Thalers. I have not yet earned that much this winter.... I am exhausted, dear Karl, and must close."

Context here


The German

Heinrich Marx an Sohn Karl, 10. Feb. 1838

"(...) ich leugne nicht, daß ich mir zuweilen Vorwürfe mache, allzu schwach Dir den Zügel gelassen zu haben. So sind wir jetzt im vierten Monat des Justizjahres, und schon hast Du 280 Taler gezogen. So viel hab' ich diesen Winter noch nicht verdient (...) Ich bin erschöpft, lieber Karl, und muß schließen."

MEGA a.a.O. 1. Abt. Bd. 1f 2. Halbbd. S. 228 f.
posted by JR at 5:16 PM

 
MARX LIVED LIKE A LORD ON HIS FATHER'S MONEY

Heinrich Marx to son Karl, 9 December 1837: "As if we were men of wealth, in one year my lord son disposes of almost 700 Taler against all agreements, against all customs, while the wealthiest people don’t even spend 500 (…)”

Context here


The German

Heinrich Marx an Sohn Karl, 9. Dez. 1837

„(…) Als wären wir Goldmännchen, verfügt der Herr Sohn in einem Jahre für beinahe 700 Taler gegen alle Abrede, gegen alle Gebräuche, während die Reichsten keine 500 ausgeben (…)“

MEW a.a.O. Ergbd. 1, S. 635 ff
posted by JR at 5:40 PM

 
MARX'S OWN FATHER SAW THAT KARL WAS HOPELESS WITH MONEY

Heinrich Marx to son Karl, 19 March 1836: "As regards your letter containing the accounts, I already told you at the time that I could not make head or tail of them. This much I did see, that you need money, and therefore I sent you 50 talers. With what you took with you, that makes 160 talers. You have been away five months in all, and now you do not even say what you need."

Context here


The German

Heinrich Marx an Sohn Karl, 19. März 1836

"Was Dein Brief mit der Rechnung betrifft, so sagte ich Dir schon damals, daß ich nicht drauskommen konnte. Soviel sah ich, daß Du Geld brauchst, und deswegen habe ich Dir 50 Taler geschickt. Das macht mit dem, was Du mitgenommen, immerhin 160 Taler. Du bist im Ganzen fünf Monate weg, und jetzt sagst Du nicht einmal, was Du brauchst."

MEGA a.a.O. 1. Abt. Bd 1f 2. Halbbd. S.190 f.
posted by JR at 5:50 PM

 
ENGELS WANTED REVENGE FOR AFFRONTS

Certainly no Christian influence there

Engels to August Bebel, 25 August 1881: “Don’t forget any affront done to you and to all our people, the time of revenge will come and must be put to good use.”

The German

Engels an August Bebel, 25 August 1881

"Vergeßt nur keine Euch und allen unsern Leuten getane Niedertracht, die Zeit der Rache kommt und muß redlich ausgenutzt werden."

MEW a.a.O. 35, 222
posted by JR at 8:20 PM

 
ENGELS ADVOCATED CONTEMPT AND RIDICULE IN ARGUMENT

Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 12 March 1881: “The paper must carry this fresh air to Germany, and the best way to do that is to treat the opponent with contempt and ridicule.”

Context here


The German

Engels an Eduard Bernstein, 12. März 1881

"Diese freie Luft muß das Blatt nach Deutschland hineintragen, und dazu dient vor allem, daß der Gegner mit Verachtung behandelt, verhöhnt wird."

MEW a.a.O. 35, 171.,
posted by JR at 5:24 PM

 
PEOPLE WERE "DEBRIS" TO MARX

“When this morning we inquired at the Hotel de l’Europe, fortunately it so happened that 60 Frenchmen were preparing to leave, while on the other hand the steam ships loaded with fresh human debris had not arrived yet.”

Abstract only here


The German:

Marx an Engels, 14. August 1879

"Als wir heut morgen im Hôtel de l'Europe anfrugen, traf es sich glücklich so, daß grade 60 Franzosen sich auf die Abreise vorbereiteten, während andrerseits die mit frischem Menschenkehricht belasteten steamers noch nicht eingetroffen."

MEW a.a.O. 34, 89.
posted by JR at 7:01 PM

 
MARX BELIEVED IN BLOODSHED

Interview with Karl Marx, Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879: "Well, then, to carry out the principles of socialism do its believers advocate assassination and bloodshed?" "No great movement," Karl answered, "has ever been inaugurated Without Bloodshed."

Context here
posted by JR at 4:48 PM

 
MORE CONTEMPT FOR IDEALS

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, October 19, 1877: "The compromise with the followers of Lassalle has also led to compromises with other half-baked elements, (…) but also with a whole gang of immature students and overly wise PhDs who want to give a “higher, ideal” twist to socialism, i.e. to replace its materialistic foundation through modern mythology with their goddesses of Justice, Liberty, Equality and fraternité [brotherhood] .... The workers themselves, when they give up working and become professional literati like Mr. Most and his ilk, always incite “theoretical” trouble and are always ready to attach themselves to muddleheads from the alleged "learned" caste."

Context here


The German

Marx an Adolph Sorge, 19. Oktober 1877

"Der Kompromiß mit den Lassallianern hat zu Kompromiß auch mit andren Halbheiten geführt,
(...) außerdem aber mit einer ganzen Bande halbreifer Studiosen und überweiser Doctores, die dem Sozialismus eine 'höhere, ideale' Wendung geben wollen, d.h. die materialistische Basis (...) zu ersetzen durch moderne Mythologie mit ihren Göttinnen der Gerechtigkeit, Freiheit, Gleichheit und fraternité (...)
Die Arbeiter selbst, wenn sie wie Herr Most et Cons. das Arbeiten aufgeben und Literaten von Profession werden, stiften stets 'theoretisch' Unheil an (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 34, 302 f.
posted by JR at 6:38 PM

 
MARX MOCKS JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND EQUALITY

Such an idealist!

Marx to Engels, 1 August 1877: "For when the little chap (Wedde) was in London for the first time I used the expression "modern mythology" to describe the goddesses of "Justice, Freedom, Equality, etc." who were now all the rage again; this made a deep impression on him, as he has himself done much in the service of these higher beings."

Context here


The German

Marx an Engels, 1. August 1877

"Als nämlich das Kerlchen (Wedde) das erstemal in London war, bediente ich mich des Ausdrucks 'moderne Mythologie' zur Bezeichnung der wieder grassierenden Göttinnen der 'Gerechtigkeit, Freiheit, Gleichheit etc.' was tiefen Eindruck auf ihn gemacht hat, da er selbst viel im Dienst dieser höheren Wesen gemacht."

MEW a.a.O. 34, 66.
posted by JR at 4:56 PM

 
CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY

Marx: "Margin notes to the Program of the German Labor Party", 1875: “Between the capitalist and the communist society is the era of the revolutionary transformation of one into the other. This corresponds to a political transitional era, in which the State cannot be anything except the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Now the Program has nothing to do with the latter, nor with the nature of the future State in communist society. Its political demands contain nothing besides the generally known democratic litany: universal voting rights, direct legislation, popular justice, a people’s militia etc. ....

But the entire Program, in spite of all its democratic bells and whistles, is completely infested by the Lassalle sect’s abject belief in the State or, even worse, by democratic faith in miracles. (…)"

Context here


The German

Marx, „Randglossen zum Programm der deutschen Arbeiterpartei“, 1875: "Zwischen der kapitalistischen und der kommunistischen Gesellschaft liegt die Periode der revolutionären Umwandlung der einen in die andre. Der entspricht auch eine politische Übergangsperiode, deren Staat nichts andres sein kann als die revolutionäre Diktatur des Proletariats.

Das Programm nun hat es weder mit letzterer zu tun, noch mit dem zukünftigen Staatswesen der kommunistischen Gesellschaft. Seine politischen Forderungen enthalten nichts außer der Welt bekannten demokratischen Litanei: allgemeines Wahlrecht, direkte Gesetzgebung, Volksrecht, Volkswehr etc. (...)

Doch das ganze Programm, trotz alles demokratischen Geklingels, ist durch und durch vom Untertanenglauben der Lassalleschen Sekte an den Staat verpestet oder, was nicht besser, vom demokratischen Wunderglauben (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 19, 31 f.
posted by JR at 6:30 PM

 
ENGELS DID NOT LIKE NON-GERMANS MUCH

Engels: “This miserable debris of former nations, Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and other thieving rabble, whom the liberal Philistine raves about in the interest of the Russians, deny each other the very air they are breathing, and have to slit each others’ greedy throats.”

The German

Engels: "Diese elenden Trümmerstücke ehemaliger Nationen, Serben, Bulgaren, Griechen und andres Räubergesindel, für die der liberale Philister im Interessen der Russen schwärmt, gönnen also einander die Luft nicht, die sie einatmen, und müssen sich untereinander die gierigen Hälse abschneiden."

MEW a.a.O. 36, 390.

Source (German only)
posted by JR at 7:10 PM

 
MORE DISTASTE FOR JEWS

Marx to Engels, 1875: "In London a sly-looking little Jew got into our carriage in a big hurry, with a small suitcase under his arm

Listed, but with no translation here


The German

Marx an Engels, 21. August 1875

"In London stieg in unsren waggon in großer Hast ein pfiffig aussehendes Jüdel, mit einem kleinen Koffer unter dem Arm."

MEW a.a.O. 34, 7 f.
posted by JR at 5:09 PM

 
THE STATE EXISTS TO OPPRESS PEOPLE, NOT TO ALLOW FREEDOM

Engels to August Bebel, March 18-28, 1875: "All these things have been done by our people to oblige the Lassalleans. And what have the others conceded? That a host of somewhat muddled and purely democratic demands should figure in the programme, some of them being of a purely fashionable nature -- for instance "legislation by the people" such as exists in Switzerland and does more harm than good, if it can be said to do anything at all.... Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one's enemies by force, it is utter madness to speak of a free people's state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies."

Context here


The German

Engels an August Bebel, 18./28. März 1875

"Daß ein Haufen ziemlich verworrener rein demokratischer Forderungen im Programm figurieren, von denen manche reine Modesache sind, wie z.B. die 'Gesetzgebung durch das Volk' (...)
Da nun der Staat doch nur eine vorübergehende Einrichtung ist, deren man sich im Kampf, in der Revolution bedient, um seine Gegner gewaltsam niederzuhalten, so ist es purer Unsinn, vom freien Volksstaat zu sprechen: solange das Proletariat den Staat noch gebraucht, gebraucht es ihn nicht im Interesse der Freiheit, sondern der Niederhaltung seiner Gegner (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 34, 130., Rotbuch S. 209
posted by JR at 8:32 PM

 
CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY AND BELIEF IN VIOLENCE

Engels to Wilhelm Blos, February 21, 1874: “The man is too wise. And on top of that, such offensive, vulgar, democratic arguments! To denigrate violence as something to be rejected, when we all know that in the end nothing can be achieved without violence!”

Listed, but with no translation here


The German

Engels an Wilhelm Blos, 21. Februar 1874

"Der Mann ist zu weise. Und dabei so ganz platte, vulgärdemokratische Gründe! Auf die Gewalt zu schimpfen als etwas Verwerfliches an sich, wo wir doch alle wissen, daß schließlich ohne Gewalt nichts durchzusetzen ist!"

MEW a.a.O. 33, 617.
posted by JR at 6:56 PM

 
CAPITALIST ARE ALL JEWS AT HEART

Karl Marx, Capital, Volume One, Part II: The Transformation of Money and Capital CHAPTER FOUR: THE GENERAL FORMULA FOR CAPITAL: "The capitalist knows that all commodities, however scurvy they may look, or however badly they may smell, are in faith and in truth money, inwardly circumcised Jews, and what is more, a wonderful means whereby out of money to make more money."

Context here


The German

Marx, „Das Kapital“, 1. Bd.

"Der Kapitalist weiß, daß alle Waren, wie lumpig sie immer aussehn oder wie schlecht sie immer riechen, im Glauben und in der Wahrheit Geld, innerlich beschnittne Juden sind, und zudem wundertätige Mittel, um aus Geld mehr Geld zu machen."

MEW a.a.O. 23, 169
posted by JR at 6:25 PM

 
MARX DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THE ECONOMICS OF HIS DAY

Although a lot of still-quoted economics (Ricardo, Smith etc) had already been written by that time

Marx To Engels, 23 May 1868: "You seem to be on the wrong track with your reluctance to present such simple formulas as M - C - M [Money-Commodity-Money], etc. to the English review philistines. On the contrary. If you were forced, as I am, to read the economic articles of Messrs Lalor, Herbert Spencer, Macleod, etc., in The Westminster Review, etc., you would see that all of them are fed up with the economic trivialities - and know their readers are fed up, too - so they try to give their scribblings some flavour through pseudo-philosophical or pseudo-scientific slang. The pseudo-character in no way makes the writing (which by itself = 0) understandable. On the contrary. The trick lies in so mystifying the reader and causing him to rack his brain, that he may finally be relieved to discover that these hard words are only fancy dress for commonplaces."

Context here


The German

Marx an Engels, 23. Mai 1868

"Du scheinst auf dem Holzweg zu sein mit Deiner Scheu, so einfache Figuren wie G-W-G etc. dem englischen Revuephilister vorzuführen. (...) Der Pseudocharakter macht die Sache (die an sich = 0) keineswegs leicht verständlich. Umgekehrt. Die Kunst besteht darin, den Leser so zu mystifizieren und ihm Kopfbrechen zu verursachen, damit er schließlich zu seiner Beruhigung entdeckt, daß diese hard words [gewichtige Worte] nur Maskeraden von loci communes [Gemeinplätzen] sind."

MEW a.a.O. 32, 91.
posted by JR at 5:55 PM

 
MARX DESPISED POOR PEOPLE

Marx: “General Council to the Federal Council of Romance Switzerland”, 1870: “The Lumpenproletariat [rag-proletariat], this residue of the degenerated members of all classes that has its headquarters in the big cities, is the worst of all possible allies. This riff-raff is totally for sale and totally obnoxious.”

Listed, but with no translation here


The German

Marx: „Der Generalrat an den Föderalrat der romanischen Schweiz“, 1870

"Das Lumpenproletariat, dieser Abhub der verkommenen Subjekte aller Klassen, der sein Hauptquartier in den großen Städten aufschlägt, ist von allen möglichen Bundesgenossen der schlimmste. Dies Gesindel ist absolut käuflich und absolut zudringlich."

MEW a.a.O. 16, 398., Rotbuch 176.
posted by JR at 5:16 PM

 
MARX WANTED TO DESTROY MODERATE LEFTIST PARTIES

Marx to Engels, February 10. 1866: "I will chew out Wilhelm [Liebknecht] with a few lines about his feebleness. For what we want is exactly the demise of the “Social-Democrat” and of all that Lassalle-crap".

Listed, but with no translation here


The German

Marx an Engels, 10. Februar 1866

"Dem Wilhelm [Liebknecht] werde ich einige Donnerzeilen über seine Schwachleibigkeit schreiben. Was wir wollen, ist ja grade der Untergang des 'Social - Demokrat' und der ganzen Lassallescheiße."

MEW a.a.O. 31, 175.
posted by JR at 7:16 PM

 
MARX HAD A FINE FEMINIST ATTITUDE TO WOMEN -- NOT

Engels To Marx, 7 November 1864: "What was obviously fatal to Lassalle was that he didn’t immediately throw the creature on the bed at the boarding house and properly have his way with her, she didn’t want his beautiful mind but his Jewish rod. This is yet another affair that could only happen with Lassalle.”

Context here


The German

Engels an Marx, 7. November 1864

"Der Lassalle ist offenbar daran kaputtgegangen, daß er das Mensch nicht sofort in der Pension aufs Bett geworfen und gehörig hergenommen hat, sie wollte nicht seinen schönen Geist, sondern jüdischen Riemen. Es ist eben wieder eine Geschichte, die nur dem Lassalle passieren konnte."

MEW a.a.O. 31, 17.
posted by JR at 6:24 PM

 
MARX GREATLY ADMIRED A PRO-GERMAN RACIST

Marx To Engels, 12 September 1863: "The most interesting acquaintanceship I have struck up here is that of Colonel Lapinski. He is without doubt the cleverest Pole - besides being an homme d'action [man of action] - that I have ever met. His sympathies are all on the German side, though in manners and speech he is also a Frenchman. He cares nothing for the struggle of nationalities and only knows the racial struggle. He hates all Orientals, among whom he numbers Russians Turks, Greeks, Armenians, etc., with equal impartiality.... His aim now is to raise a German legion in London, even if only 200 strong, so that he can confront the Russians in Poland with the black, red and gold flag, partly to 'exasperate' the Parisians, partly to see whether there is any possibility whatsoever of bringing the Germans in Germany back to their senses. What's lacking is money. Efforts are being made down here to exploit all the German societies, etc., to this end. You must be the best judge of whether anything can be done in this line in Manchester. The cause itself would seem to be above reproach.”

Context here


The German

Marx an Engels, 12. September 1863

"Die interessanteste Bekanntschaft, die ich hier gemacht, ist die des Oberst Lapinski. Er ist unbedingt der geistreichste Pole - dabei homme d'action -, den ich bisher kennengelernt (...)
Statt des Nationalitätenkampfs kennt er nur den Rassenkampf. Er haßt alle Orientalen, wozu er Russen Türken, Griechen, Armenier usw. mit gleicher Vorliebe zählt (...)
Sein Zweck in London ist jetzt, eine deutsche Legion, wenn auch nur von 200 Mann auf die Beine zu bringen, um mit der schwarzrotgoldnen Fahne den Russen in Polen gegenüberzutreten (...)
Was fehlt, ist Geld. Es werden hier Versuche gemacht, sämtliche deutsche Vereine usw. für diesen Zweck zu exploitieren. Du mußt am besten wissen, ob in Manchester etwas in dieser line zu tun ist. Die Sache selbst wäre vorzüglich."

MEW a.a.O. 30, 371 ff., Rotbuch S. 143
posted by JR at 5:56 PM

 
SPONGING, NOT WORKING WAS ENGELS'S WAY OF LIFE TOO

Engels To Marx, 8 August 1862: "But all this is marginal stuff and, unless we can discover the art of shitting gold, there would hardly seem to be any alternative to your extracting something from your relations by one means or another."

Context here


The German

Engels an Marx, 8. August 1862

"(...) und falls wir nicht die Kunst erfinden, Gold zu scheißen, wird schwerlich etwas andres übrigbleiben, als daß Du auf die eine oder die andre Weise etwas aus Deinen Verwandten herausschlägst."

MEW a.a.O. 30, 273.
posted by JR at 6:52 PM

 
MARX CARED MORE ABOUT HIS BOOK THAN HIS OWN FAMILY

Marx To Engels, 18 June 1862: "Every day my wife says she wishes she and the children were safely in their graves, and I really cannot blame her, for the humiliations, torments and alarums that one has to go through in such a situation are indeed indescribable. As you know, the 50 pounds went on debts, more than half of which remain to be paid.... a week ago, my wife attempted to sell some books of mine 'in vain'. I feel all the more sorry for the unfortunate children in that all this is happening during the Exhibition Season, when their friends are having fun, whereas they themselves live in dread lest someone should come and see them and realise what a mess they are in..... For the rest, I myself, by the by, am working away hard and, strange to say, my grey matter is functioning better in the midst of the surrounding misery than it has done for years. I’m further expanding this volume, since the German sons-of-bitches value a book according to its cubic content.”

Context here


Some of the German

Marx an Engels, 18. Juni 1862

"Ich dehne diesen Band mehr aus, da die deutschen Hunde den Wert der Bücher nach dem Kubikinhalt schätzen."

MEW a.a.O. 30, 248 f., Rotbuch S. 139
posted by JR at 5:34 PM

 
MARX SPEAKS OF "REPULSIVE JEWISH FACIAL FEATURES"

Yes. That was Marx, not Hitler

Marx to Antoinette Philips, March 24, 1861: “This young lady, who instantly overwhelmed me with her kindness, is the ugliest creature I have seen in my entire life, with repulsive Jewish facial features.”

Listed, without translation here


The German

Marx an Antoinette Philips, March 24. 1861

"Dieses Fräulein, das mich mit ihrem Wohlwollen direkt überschwemmte, ist das häßlichste Geschöpf, das ich je in meinem Leben gesehen habe, mit einer garstigen jüdischen Physiognomie (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 30, 591.
posted by JR at 5:43 PM

 
MARX THE PARASITE

Always sponging and cheating

Marx to Engels, November 6, 1861: “I got a reply from the old lady yesterday. Nothing but “tender” expressions, but no cash. She also tells me something I already knew, that she is 75 years old and feeling a lot of the infirmities of old age.”

(No other translation available on the net)


The German

Marx an Engels, 6. November 1861

"Von meiner Alten erhielt ich gestern Antwort. Nichts als 'zärtliche' Redensarten, but no cash. Außerdem teilt sie mir mit, was ich längst wußte, daß sie 75 Jahre alt ist und manche Gebresten des Alters fühlt."

MEW a.a.O. 30, 198.

Marx to Lassalle, February 15, 1861: "You know that I want to settle difficult money matters here with my uncle (who manages my mother’s fortune and earlier on has often given me significant advances on my inheritance). The man is tough, but takes a lot of pride in my position as an author. That’s why in your letter to me you must speak of the success (lucus a non lucendo [even though the opposite is the case]) of my most recent piece against Vogt, of our joint plans for a newspaper and so on, and generally arrange your letter in such a way that I can grant my uncle “the confidence” of sharing the letter with him.”

(No other translation available on the net)


The German

Marx an Lassalle, 15. Februar 1861

"Du weißt, daß ich hier mit meinem Onkel (der das Vermögen meiner Mutter verwaltet und in frühren Zeiten mir öfter bedeutende Vorschüsse auf mein Erbteil gemacht) schwierige Geldverhältnisse in Ordnung bringen will. Der Mann ist zäh, hat aber viel Eitelkeit auf mein Schriftstellertum. Du mußt daher in Deinem Brief an mich von dem Erfolg (lucus a non lucendo) [obgleich das Gegenteil der Fall ist]) meiner letzten Schrift gegen Vogt, von gemeinschaftlichen Zeitungsplänen usf. sprechen, überhaupt Deinen Brief so einrichten, daß ich dem Herrn Onkel 'das Vertrauen' schenken kann, ihm den Brief mitzuteilen."

MEW a.a.O. 30, 588. [lucus a non lucendo = obwohl das Gegenteil der Fall ist]

Source in German only
posted by JR at 7:17 PM

 
MARX WAS A SOCIAL DARWINIST

Marx To Ferdinand Lassalle, 16 January 1861: "Darwin's work is most significant and suits me as a natural science underpinning for historic class struggle. One does, of course, have to put up with the clumsy English style of argument. Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, 'teleology' in natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained."

Context here


The German

Marx an Lassalle, 16. Januar 1861

"Sehr bedeutend ist Darwins Schrift und paßt mir als naturwissenschaftliche Unterlage des geschichtlichen Klassenkampfes."

MEW a.a.O. 30, 578.
posted by JR at 7:09 PM

 
MARX WAS A CHRONIC SPONGER

Marx To Engels, 7 May 1861: "First, then, to business. For a start, I squeezed 160 pounds out of my uncle so that we were able to pay off the greater part of our debts. My mother, with whom any discussion about cash is out of the question, but who is rapidly nearing her end, destroyed some I.O.U.s I had given her in the past. That was the distinctly pleasant result of the two days I spent with her. I myself said nothing to her about money matters and it was she who took the initiative in this connection."

Context here



The German

Marx an Engels, 7. Mai 1861

"Meinem Onkel habe ich zunächst 160 £ abgepreßt, so daß wir den größten Teil unsrer Schulden abzahlen konnten. Meine Mutter, bei der von barem Geld nicht die Rede ist, die aber rasch ihrer Auflösung entgegengeht, hat einige frühere Schuldscheine, die ich ihr ausgestellt, vernichtet (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 30, 161 ff.
posted by JR at 6:07 PM

 
MARX BELIEVED IN A "JEWISH" LOOK

Marx: “Mr. Vogt”, 1860: "But how much good does it do Mr. Levy to attack Mr. Disraeli and to turn an I into a Y, since Mother Nature has inscribed his family tree in the craziest lettering right in the middle of his face."

(No other translation available online)


The German

Marx, „Herr Vogt“, 1860

"Aber was nützt es dem Herrn Levy, den Herrn Disraeli anzugreifen und ein Y für ein I zu machen, da Mutter Natur seinen Stammbaum in tollster Frakturschrift ihm mitten ins Gesicht geschrieben hat."

MEW a.a.O. 14, 599 ff.

(Listed here but untranslated)
posted by JR at 5:03 PM

 
MORE MOCKING ALLUSIONS TO JEWS

Engels to Marx, 1860: "I intend to write to Ephraim Artful [Ferdinand Lassalle] tomorrow; a diplomatic missive such as this ought not to be sent off without due reflection.... Moreover, little Jew Braun will now see.... ".

Context here


The German

Engels an Marx, 31. Januar 1860

"Ich denke morgen an Ephraim Gescheit zu schreiben; dies diplomatische Sendschreiben darf nicht unüberlegt fortgeschickt werden (...) Jüdel Braun wird jetzt auch einsehen, (....)"

MEW a.a.O. 30, 14.

Marx to Engels,25 February 1859: "Admittedly, little Jew Braun [Ferdinand Lassalle] hasn't written to me since my manuscript arrived, and that was over four weeks ago."

Context here


The German

Marx an Engels, 25. Februar 1859

"Das Jüdel Braun hat mir zwar nicht geschrieben, seit mein Manuskript angekommen ist, und das sind über vier Wochen. (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 29, 405.
posted by JR at 8:34 PM

 
ENGELS BELIEVED GERMANS TO BE A SUPERIOR RACE

Karl Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy" (Review by Frederick Engels), Das Volk, 30 No. 14, August 6, 1859: "The Germans have long since shown that in all spheres of science they are equal, and in most of them superior, to other civilised nations. Only one branch of science, political economy, had no German name among its foremost scholars."

Context here


The German

Engels: Karl Marx' "Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie", 1859

"Auf allen wissenschaftlichen Gebieten haben die Deutschen längst ihre Ebenbürtigkeit, auf den meisten ihre Überlegenheit gegenüber den übrigen zivilisierten Nationen bewiesen. (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 13, 476.
posted by JR at 5:41 PM

 
DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALISM DESPISED AGAIN

Marx to Engels,25 February 1859: "Those dogs of democrats and liberal riff-raff will see that we're the only chaps who haven't been stultified by the ghastly period of peace."

Context here


The German

Marx an Engels, 25. Februar 1859

"Die Hunde von Demokraten und liberalen Lumpen werden sehn, daß wir die einzigen Kerls sind, die nicht verdummt sind in der schauderhaften Friedensperiode."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 401.
posted by JR at 5:08 PM

 
CONTEMPT FOR BOTH DEMOCRACY AND INDUSTRIOUSNESS

Marx to Engels, December 17, 1858: "The industriousness of these little Baden fleas, bred from democratic piss-sewage, is touching.”

The German

Marx an Engels, 17. Dezember 1858

"Die Betriebsamkeit dieser kleinen aus der demokratischen Pißjauche ausgebrüteten badensischen Flöhe ist rührend."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 376., Rotbuch S. 119

Engels to Marx, letter of May 11th, 1857: “I’m returning the letter by Lassalle. A loony Jew, from top to toe.”

The German

Engels an Marx, 11. Mai 1857

"Hierbei der Brief von Lassalle zurück. Dorch un dorch der läppische Jüd."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 134., Rotbuch 115.

Source

Note: Several of the quotations I have put up recently are from documents listed by the Marxists among the official list of Marx & Engels works but which have not been reproduced in full nor translated. See for instance here. I guess they were just too embarrassing.


posted by JR at 6:07 PM

 
ANTISEMITISM AND A LIKING FOR BAD NEWS ALL IN ONE

Marx to Engels, February 16, 1857: "… the Jew Steinthal is supposed to have got hold of Weerth’s diaries. (…) that sweetly grinning haggler. (…) Since of course in my own crisis it is very gratifying to hear about crises, please let me know in a few lines how things are in the industrial areas".

The German

Marx an Engels, 16. Februar 1857

"... der Jude Steinthal habe sich der Weerthschen Tagebücher bemächtigt (...) Dieser süß grinsende Schacherer. (...)
Da es mir jetzt in meiner eignen Krise natürlich sehr erbaulich ist, von Krisen zu hören, so laß mich in ein paar Zeilen wissen, wie es mit den Industriebezirken steht."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 104 ff.


posted by JR at 7:34 PM

 
MARX ADMITS TO DELIBERATE OBFUSCATION

It is possible that I could disgrace myself. But there's always a bit of Dialectic to help out. I have naturally expressed my statements so that I am also right if the opposite thing happens.

(No other English translation available online)


The German

Marx an Engels, 15. August 1857

"Es ist möglich, daß ich mich blamiere. Indes ist dann immer mit einiger Dialektik zu helfen. Ich habe natürlich meine Aufstellungen so gehalten, daß ich im umgekehrten Fall auch Recht habe."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 161., Rotbuch S. 115

Source


posted by JR at 5:57 PM

 
MORE ANTISEMITIC ABUSE OF LASALLE

Engels to Marx: "The Lasalle manoeuvres have amused me greatly, the frizzy Jew-head now has to very charmingly distinguish himself in the red nightshirt and Marquis garb -- from which at every movement the Polish kike looks out. Seeing it must give the impression of louse-like repulsiveness."

(No other English translation available online)


The German

Engels an Marx, 14.April 1856

"Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der krause Juddekopp muß sich über dem roten Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei jeder Bewegung der polnische Schmuhl durchguckt, sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, muß der Kerl einen höchst lausig-widerwärtigen Eindruck machen."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 43.

Source


Update

Since I posted the above, a reader has sent me a more polished translation than my own rather laboured version. To wit:

“The volleys from Lassalle have amused me greatly, the kinky Jewface must look very enticing above his red nightgown and in the garments of a Marquis that with every movement show his Polish mug. In person, the guy must make a highly dirty and disgusting impression.”


posted by JR at 9:03 PM

 
PARANOIA ABOUT BOTH JEWS AND JESUITS

Marx, The Russian loan: "So we find that behind every tyrant stands a Jew just as there is a Jesuit behind every Pope. Truly, the lusts of the oppressors would be hopeless and the possibility of war unimaginable if it were not for an army of Jesuits to throttle thought and a handful of Jews to pick pockets"

(No other English version available online even though the article was originally published in English. The version above is my translation from the German)


The German

Marx, „Die russische Anleihe“, 1856

"So finden wir, daß hinter jedem Tyrannen ein Jude, wie hinter jedem Papst ein Jesuit steht. Wahrlich, die Gelüste der Unterdrücker wären hoffnungslos, die Möglichkeit von Kriegen unvorstellbar, gäbe es nicht eine Armee von Jesuiten das Denken zu drosseln, und eine Handvoll Juden, die Taschen zu plündern."

Eleanor Marx a.a.O. S.600., Rotbuch S. 113

Source in German


posted by JR at 2:23 PM

 
LASALLE, THE "JEWISH NIGGER"

Ferdinand Lasalle was born of Jewish stock on April 11, 1825 in Breslau, Germany (now in Poland). He was one of the earliest advocates of working-class political activism and is regarded as the founder of the German SPD (Social Democratic Party) which rules Germany today. His vision was however much more humane than Marx and centred on the formation of worker co-operatives rather than on revolution. So Marx saw him as an enemy -- but still tried to borrow money off him! Privately, however both Marx and Engels were deeply contemptuous of Lasalle and used every possible term of abuse for him -- the most famous of which is "Jewish nigger". Excerpt follows:

Marx to Engels. "The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, I'm glad to say, is leaving at the end of this week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a `friend', even though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this he bases himself on the view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron.... And on top of it all, the sheer gluttony and wanton lechery of this `idealist'! It is now quite plain to me - as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify - that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses' flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow's importunity is also nigger-like".

Context here


The German

Marx an Engels, 1862

"Der jüdische Nigger Lassalle, der glücklicherweise Ende dieser Woche abreist, hat glücklich wieder 5000 Taler in einer falschen Spekulation verloren... Es ist mir jetzt völlig klar, daß er, wie auch seine Kopfbildung und sein Haarwuchs beweist, von den Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des Moses aus Ägypten anschlossen (wenn nicht seine Mutter oder Großmutter von väterlicher Seite sich mit einem Nigger kreuzten). Nun, diese Verbindung von Judentum und Germanentum mit der negerhaften Grundsubstanz müssen ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die Zudringlichkeit des Burschen ist auch niggerhaft."

Marx an Engels, 1862 (MEW Band 30, Seite 257).




Engels on Lasalle:

Lasalle. "Moreover, this mania of the greasy Breslau Jew, using all sorts of pomades and rouges to pretty himself up, to force himself into the distinguished world -- to "arrive" (even if only to appearances) -- was always repulsive"

(No other English translation available online)


The German

Engels an Marx, 7. März 1856

"Lassalle. (...) Dann diese Sucht, sich in die vornehme Welt einzudrängen, de parvenir, wenn auch nur zum Schein, den schmierigen Breslauer Jud mit allerhand Pomade und Schminke zu übertünchen, waren immer widerwärtig."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 31.

Source

posted by JR at 5:19 PM

 
MARX'S JEWISH STEREOTYPE AGAIN

Marx, About the emancipation of the small-farmers in Russia: "But it is well-known that the Russian nobility are, moreover, indebted, to a large extent, to private individuals, bankers, tradesmen, Jews and usurers, and that the great majority are so heavily encumbered as to leave them but a nominal interest in their possessions"

Context here


The German

Marx, „Über die Bauernbefreiung in Rußland“, 1858

"Es ist wohlbekannt, daß der russische Adel überdies in großem Maße an Privatpersonen, an Bankiers, Händler, Juden und Wucherer verschuldet ist (...)"

MEW a.a.O. 12, 677


posted by JR at 7:12 PM

 
DEATH AS A HAPPY EVENT

Marx to Engels: "Yesterday we were informed of a very happy event, the death of my wife's uncle, aged 90. As a result, my mother-in-law will save an annual impost of 200 talers and my wife will get almost £100; more if the old dog hasn't made over to his housekeeper that part of his money that was not tied up".

Context here


The German

Marx an Engels, 8. März 1855

"A very happy Event, der Tod des 90jährigen Onkels meiner Frau wurde uns gestern mitgeteilt. (...) meine Frau wird an 100 £ bekommen; mehr, wenn der alte Hund den Teil seines Geldes, der nicht fidei commiß war, nicht seiner Haushälterin vermacht."

MEW a.a.O. 28, 438.

posted by JR at 5:23 PM

 
MARX DESPISED RUSSIA

"In the Russian vocabulary there is no such word as honour"

Context here


The German

Marx, „Lord Palmerston“, 1853

"In dem russischen Vokabularium existiert das Wort 'Ehre' nicht."

MEW a.a.O. 9, 396.



posted by JR at 8:33 PM