45 2 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHYopinion which differed from his own did he accord the honour of even
condescending consideration. Everyone who contradicted him he treated
with abject contempt; every argument that he did not like he treated either
with biting scorn at the unfathomable ignorance that had prompted it,
or with opprobrious aspersions on the motives of him who advanced it. I
remember most distinctly the cutting disdain with which he pronounced
the word bourgeois: and as a bourgeois - that is, as a detestable example
of the deepest mental and moral degeneracy - he denounced everyone
who dared oppose his opinions.
The Reminiscences of Karl Schurz
(London, 1909 ) 1 138 f.
The Down-and-out Prussian LieutenantFirst we drank port, then claret which is red Bordeaux, then champagne.
After the red wine Marx became completely drunk. That was exactly what
I wanted, because he became at the same time much more open-hearted
than he probably would have been otherwise. I found out the truth about
certain things which would otherwise have remained mere suppositions.
In spite of his drunkenness Marx dominated the conversation up to the
last moment.
The impression he made on me was that of someone who possessed a
rare intellectual superiority, and he was evidently a man of outstanding
personality. If his heart had matched his intellect, and if he had possessed
as much love as hate, I would have gone through fire for him, even
though at the end he expressed his complete and candid contempt for
me, and had previously indicated his contempt in passing. He was the
first and only one among us all to whom I would entrust leadership, for
he was a man who never lost himself in small matters when dealing with
great events.
Yet it is a matter for regret in view of our aims that this man with his
fine intellect is lacking in nobility of soul. I am convinced that a most
dangerous personal ambition has eaten away all the good in him. He
laughs at the fools who parrot his proletarian catechism, just as he laughs
over the communists a la Willich and over the bourgeoise. The only
people he respects are the aristocrats, the genuine ones, those who are
well aware of their aristocracy. In order to prevent them from governing,
he needs his own source of strength, which he can find only in the
proletariat. Accordingly he has tailored his system to them. In spite of all
his assurances to the contrary, personal domination was the aim of all his
endeavours.
E[ngels] and all his old associates, in spite of their very real gifts, are