Letter to Karl Marx, about August 10, 1851

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 10 August 1851


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. I, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38


[Manchester, about 10 August 1851]

Dear Marx.

I was very much tickled by the Schnellpost. It's a long time since I've read such consummate balderdash as 'A. Ruge an K. Heinzen'.[1] I couldn't have believed that even two jackasses such as Ruge and Heinzen could emerge from three years of revolutionary tumult so completely unchanged and still so encumbered with the same old stock phrases, absurd mannerisms, turns of speech, etc. It's like the clown in the circus riders' troupe who, after performing the most hair-raising leaps, makes yet another bow, says: 'HERE WE ARE AGAIN!' and then, without the least compunction, proceeds to repeat every item in his all-too familiar repertoire. I can just see Ruge, that egregious literary laxative, as he seriously declares that

'the fundamental answer to tyranny, anarchy and high treason ... is precisely the bull's-eye which it behoves us to hit', -

and then himself hits the bull's-eye with the discovery that the modern class struggle is the secessio plebis,[2] whence, by a process of effortless association, he goes on to the Roman schoolmaster[3] whose name I forget, his fable of the stomach and the hands[4] and other such charming fourth form pedagogic recollections. The chap's impayable[5] when he comes to speak of 'circumstances',

'As you know ... by "circumstances" all I mean are the thoughts which are presently uppermost in men's minds!'

His lame attempts at making wittily malicious allusions were a dismal failure. The fellow is adroit enough; his malice is plain for all to see, but nobody has the faintest idea of its object nor of the general why and wherefore. And whereas the great Ruge is turning out to be a buffoon pure and simple, the great Heinzen excels no less as a boor, a condition now become chronic. The manner in which the fellow seeks, in his note of 23 July 1851, to fob off on his readers his old nonsense about communism couched in the very same terms as those he used in the Deutsche-Brusseler-Zeitung in the summer of 1847, is impudent beyond words.[6]

Et pourtant,[7] the fellows are compelled to recognise the superiority of our stuff, not only by their constant preoccupation with it, but even more by its influence on them of which despite their stubbornness and rage they are quite unaware. In all this scribble, there is not a single phrase that does not contain a plagiarism, an uncomprehending distortion of our stuff, or something suggested by it.

Mr Meyen or Faucher has published a fatuous article in Manteuffel's semi-official Lithographische Correspondenz in Berlin about the attempted conciliation in London[8] only we two still stick to one another, etc.-all the rest being united and opposed to us. No mention of Freiligrath or Wolff. It would seem that, following the disbandment of the army of the future, the great Willich finds himself obliged to gain recognition as 'a character'[9] among the great men of all parties; he is even said to have attended their meetings. A quoi tous ces coups de désespoir ont-ils abouti?[10] And has the great Sigel been to see you?

I have just been assured by a German social jackass who arrived from Dessau with an introduction from Julius, that the gentlemen there have been circulating the rumour that, by your own confession-you yourself are alleged to have told Mr Louis Drucker (!) so-you are writing for the Neue Preussische Zeitung. En voilà une bonne![11]

As for Proudhon,[12] the man seems to be making progress. The phases of development through which his nonsense passes are at least assuming a more tolerable form and these heresies are something for Mr Louis Blanc to break his teeth on. Thus, au bout du compte,[13] Mr Proudhon has now also come to the conclusion that the true meaning of property rights lies in the disguised confiscation of all property by a more or less disguised State, and that what abolition of the State really means is intensified state centralisation. What else are

'toutes les communes de la république qui s'entendent pour égaliser entre elles les différences de qualité des terrains ainsi que les accidents de la culture',[14]

with all the appurtenances and consequences this would entail?

More about this old character tomorrow, provided I have the time. I can't possibly let you have Friday's article this week.[15] But write and tell me soon what sort of thing it should be-whether you wish it to stand on its own or to be one of a series, and 2) what attitude I should adopt, as I know nothing about the routines of the New-York Tribune beyond the fact that they are American Whigs.[16] Also, any other available information that may help me find my bearings.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 408.
  2. ↑ secession of the plebs
  3. ↑ Menenius Agrippa
  4. ↑ An allusion to an episode in the struggle between the plebeians and patricians in Ancient Rome described by Livy in his Ab urbe condita libri. Tradition has it that Menenius Agrippa persuaded the plebeians who had rebelled and withdrawn to the Mons Sacer in 494 B.C. to submit by telling them the fable about the other parts of the human body revolting against the stomach because, they said, it consumed food and did no work, but afterwards realising that they could not exist without it.
  5. ↑ priceless
  6. ↑ 'Karl Heinzen und die Kommunisten', Deutsche-Brusseler-Zeitung, No. 77, 26 September 1847. Engels' reply to it were articles 'The Communists and Karl Heinzen'.
  7. ↑ Nevertheless
  8. ↑ See this volume, p. 425.
  9. ↑ Cf. H. Heine, Atta Troll, XXI" -'no talent but a character' (description of the bear-hero Atta Troll).
  10. ↑ What have all these acts of despair led to?
  11. ↑ That's a good one!
  12. ↑ P. J. Proudhon, Idée générale de la Révolution au XIXe siècle
  13. ↑ in the final analysis
  14. ↑ all the communes in the Republic which come to an agreement regarding mutual compensation for the difference in the quality of their lands, and for the hazards of agriculture
  15. ↑ See this volume, pp. 408-09.
  16. ↑ American Whigs were members of a political party in the USA mainly representing the interests of the industrial and financial bourgeoisie and supported by some of the plantation owners. The American Whig Party existed from 1838 to 1854, when the intensified struggle over slavery gave rise to splits and regroupings in the political parties of the country. In 1854 the majority of the Whigs, together with a section of the Democratic Party and the farmers' party (Free-Soilers), formed the Republican Party, which opposed slavery. The Right-wing Whigs joined the Democratic Party, which defended the interests of the slave-owning planters.