Pen portrait of Marx
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https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/marx/79_01_31.htm
Queen Victoria’s daughter asked a flunky to go and look into Marx…
Richard Wolff also described Karl Marx and Frederich Engels as one of the most educated men from the European world of their time and who were able to speak several languages at the same time. I had real physical pictures of Marx and Engels in my office and nobody dared to tell me anything, and I had them in my home office too
Actually, the M&E media interviews section is fascinating:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/index.htm
It does look like, had Engels lived to 1914, he’d have joined the Social Democrats in voting war credits:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/engels/92_04_01.htm
” On the contrary, a war between Germany and France would be the only means of preventing the socialists’ coming to power. And if France and Russia in alliance attacked Germany, the latter would defend to the death its national existence, in which the German socialists have an even greater interest than the bourgeoisie. The socialists, then, would fight to the last man, and would not hesitate to resort to the revolutionary means employed by France in 1793.”
(Actually, not a bad prediction of what did happen, there’s a strong argument Germany used the war to block the SDs from coming to office, and the revolutionary means of ending the war was used…).
And here:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/media/engels/93_05_13.htm
“Today a coup d’état is no longer as easy as it used to be,” replied my interlocutor briskly. “In 1864, at the time of Bismarck’s clash with the Prussian Chamber, Prussia was a centralised state, whereas today the German Empire is a federal state. The central government would be taking too great a risk in attempting a coup d’état. In order to be certain of bringing it off, it would need the unanimous consent of these different federal governments. If one of these failed to accept the coup d’état, it would be released from its obligations towards the Empire, and that would mean the break-up of federal state. That is not all! The federal constitution is the only guarantee which the small states have against the domination of Prussia; in violating it themselves, they would be handing themselves over, bound hand and foot, to the mercies of the central power. Is it likely that Bavaria would capitulate to such an extent? No, and to reserve myself on this point, I tell you this: ‘To carry out a coup d’état in Germany, the emperor would have to have either the people on his side-and he has not-or all the confederate governments, and he will never have them all.'”
Which also serves as a good guide to the threat of a coup in the US.
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