Letter to Karl Marx, December 17, 1850

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 17 December 1850


First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, pp. 254-256

TO MARX IN LONDON


Manchester, 17 December 1850

Dear Marx,

I have been exceptionally busy of late and have had other interruptions which have forced me out of my customary routine and prevented me from writing. Hence my belated reply.

The Fanon-Caperon-Gouté manifesto[1] is truly a masterpiece, both in form and content. Crânerie[2] has found its ultimate expression, and Monsieur Barthélémy has at last given the world an example of ce que c'est que de parler carrément![3] The military dispositions of the homme de marbre[4] are equally funny; the bonhomme[5] has counted most of the Austrian army corps twice over, as the most cursory reference to the newspapers will show. Incidentally, it's really taking effrontery too far after all the fiascos since 1848, and with all the nations, crapauds[6] first and foremost, in their present easy-going mood, to speak of a marée populaire qui menace d'engloutir des trônes.[7] The collection of names at the bottom is undoubtedly the finest feature of the whole. No such European congress has ever been seen before. Ledru-Rollin, Mazzini and Co. actually acquire a certain importance from this puerile affair. For that matter, I'd like to know in what way that milksop Sawaszkiewicz, who appears at the bottom, differs from Ledru-Rollin's Polack Darasz, and to what extent the two Hungarians, who appear at the bottom, are to be preferred to Mazzini. True, Schapper and Ruge are more or less equally matched and, unless the cockroach Dietz tips the scales heavily in favour of the new European committee, these gentry will hardly be able to compete with their prototype.[8]

Recently I went to see John Watts; the fellow seems skilled in sharp practice and now has a much larger shop in Deansgate, somewhat further up. He has become a consummate radical mediocrity, is concerned with nothing but the educational movement, raves about moral force[9] and has accepted Mr Proudhon as his lord and master. He has translated the Contradictions économiques[10] and some other stuff and has lost a great deal of money at it, since English workers have not yet sufficient 'education' to enable them to understand these marvellous things. From a few instances he gave me, it transpired that he knows very well how to boost his tailoring business by parading his bourgeois liberalism. On the educational committees he sits fraternally alongside his once inveterate foes, the dissenting ministers,[11] from time to time accepting their vote of thanks for the very able address he delivered on that evening. It seemed to me that the fellow has lost all his wits in the metamorphosis and I have not been to see him since. For people hereabouts who are thus transmuted into a state of bourgeois respectability, Proudhon is, of course, heaven sent; though seemingly going further than anyone else, further even than Owen, he is nevertheless fully respectable.

I have no objection to writing about Mr Mazzini and the Italian business. Only—save for the thing in The Red [Republican][12] —I haven't got a single one of Mazzini's writings. However I shan't be able to do anything before Christmas since I shall be in London a week hence. I shall then bring back with me what I need. But perhaps by that time something else will have occurred to us.

Very many thanks to your wife for her amiable note.[13] As for the cotton lord, it hasn't come to that yet; my old man doesn't seem at all inclined to keep me here any longer than is absolutely necessary. Cependant nous verrons.[14] Peter Ermen is going round in circles like a fox that has left its brush in a trap, and is trying to make things too hot for me here—the stupid devil imagines he could annoy me!

Dronke has been written to.[15]

My regards to your wife and children.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 246-47.
  2. ↑ Swagger
  3. ↑ what blunt speaking is
  4. ↑ man of marble (iron)
  5. ↑ chap
  6. ↑ philistines
  7. ↑ a popular tide which is threatening to engulf thrones
  8. ↑ Engels compares the grouping of refugee organisations whose representatives signed the address 'To the Democrats of All Nations!' with the Central Committee of European Democracy set up in London in June 1850 on the initiative of Giuseppe Mazzini. The Committee included, besides Mazzini, Ledru-Rollin from the French democrats, Arnold Ruge from the German, and Albert Darasz from the Polish democrats. The Central Committee members held sharply differing ideological views, and the strained relations between the Italian and French democrats led to its dissolution in March 1852.
  9. ↑ Moral force—the name given in the political vocabulary of the time to peaceful, non-revolutionary methods of carrying out social and political reforms. From the 1830s to the 1850s the moral force supporters included Right-wing Chartists oriented towards collaboration with the bourgeois radicals. Engels made the acquaintance of John Watts during his stay in England in 1842-44 and assessed his part in disseminating Robert Owen's socialist ideas in his 'Letters from London' (see present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 385-89).
  10. ↑ P. J. Proudhon, Système des contradictions économiques, ou Philosophie de la misère.
  11. ↑ Dissenters were members of Protestant religious sects and trends in England who rejected the dogmas and rites of the official Anglican Church.
  12. ↑ J. Mazzini, Republic and Royalty in Italy.
  13. ↑ See this volume, pp. 250-51.
  14. ↑ However, we shall see.
  15. ↑ Engels' letter to Dronke mentioned here has not been found.