KARL MARX

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2^6 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
him', Marx wrote to Engels, 'that it was quite all right for him to be an
egoist, but he should be one in a civilised manner.' 108 What especially
riled Marx was Jones's failure to carry out his promise of publishing an
English translation of the Eighteenth Brumaire. But Marx supported Jones
against the less radical Chartists, was favourably impressed by the relative
success of Jones's paper and his meetings in 1853, and eventually contributed
some articles himself, though the number of printing errors made
him very reluctant to continue. When invited by Jones to sit in the
Labour Parliament in Manchester in 1854 Marx sent what he himself
described as an ambivalent reply, declaring that 'the working class of
Great Britain has shown itself more capable than any other of standing
at the head of the great movement which, in the final analysis, must lead
to the complete freedom of labour.... The organisation of its united
forces, the organisation of the working class on a national scale - such I
conceive to be the great aim which the Workers' Parliament has set for
itself." 09
In February 1855 the same troubles as four years previously threatened
to recur when Jones tried to organise another banquet to celebrate the
1848 revolution. Marx let himself be persuaded to attend a meeting of
the Chartist International Committee to prepare the banquet, but 'the
idle chatter of the Frenchmen, the staring of the Germans and the gesticulations
of the Spaniards', not to mention the recent election of Herzen
to the committee, impressed him merely as pure farce. He was a supercilious
and silent observer at the meeting, smoking excessively to compensate.
110 He eventually declined the invitation to the banquet (though his
name appeared on the handbill) on the grounds that all such meetings
were 'humbug', that it could bring about renewed persecution of aliens,
and finally that he had refused ever to appear in the company of Herzen
'because I have no intention of seeing old Europe renewed through
Russian blood'. 111 In 1856, however, Marx did accept an invitation to
attend a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of The People's
Paper 'because', as he put it, 'the times seem to me to be hotting up ...
and even more because I was the only one of the refugees to be invited'.
The refugees were thereby convinced 'that we are the only "intimate"
allies of the Chartists and that, if we hold back from public demonstrations
and leave it to the Frenchmen openly to flirt with Chartism, it is always
in our power to reoccupy the position that history has already allotted
us'. 112 Relations between Marx and Jones became strained when, in 1857,
Jones began to co-operate with radical sections of the middle class in
order to get wide support for electoral reform; this failed however. In
1861 he moved to Manchester to practise as a barrister, and maintained
friendly relations with Marx and Engels until his death in 1869. 113