[Marxism] A letter from Dr. Marx

[Nestor Gorojovsky]

Dear Mr. S. Artesian,

I thank you hereby for your understanding of the difficulties arising 
from the fact that we speak different languages. I am also most 
sympathetic with the connections you establish between the seemingly 
universal status of English (New York Times English you say, and I 
agree) and the role of the currency of a mainly English-speaking nation 
in global trade. Your letter has also reminded me of my criticisms to 
the French comrades in the First International. You may remember that I 
told about them on a letter that they seemed to imagine the 
international brotherhood of the workers as a French-speaking global 
collective.

However, I would also say that linguistic barriers are a material 
hindrance that we are not in a condition to elliminate by a royal 
decree. I am afraid that we shall have to live on with translations for 
a long time ahead. I have been told, Marxmail is an English-based list, 
which brings me collections ofmy old friend´s Charles Dana´s newspaper. 
It also brings me some collections of due payments, but these are trifle 
issues we should not take into account in our erudite academic 
intercourse. I remember that, to my great dismay, I could not send my 
articles to that newspaper in German, so that I had to draft them in 
English, send them to my friend Frederick Engels for further polish (I 
admit that some of those articles, particularly those dwelling on things 
military, were almost completely written by Freddy), and have them 
displayed to a mainly English-speaking public in their original language.

So that, though I am clearly and honestly sympathetic to you and your 
spirited remarks, I would simply beg you to acknowledge the fact that 
due to the same reasons that would drive me to a frenzy of rage if I saw 
some USAmerican revolutionary sending articles in English to a 
German-based mailing list, it is my own duty to adapt myself to the 
conditions of production and life that millions of years of human life 
on  planet Earth have bestowed on us, among which language 
differentiation is not the less important. I am absolutely convinced 
that we agree in that we humans make history but we do so under 
conditions directly received from the past (well, this is a nice 
sentence, think I will use it somewhere).

With my highest consideration, yours,

Dr. Karl Marx.

S. Artesian escribió:
> Dear Dr. Marx,
> 
> We have reviewed your latest submission entitled obscurely The 18th Brumaire 
> of Louis Bonaparte, written in that obscure European language, and have 
> decided it is not suitable for posting on our list-serve which, as you 
> should have known, regards the English language as the equivalent of the 
> almighty dollar-- the