Letter to Karl Marx, September 19, 1851

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 19 September 1851


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38


TO MARX IN LONDON

[Manchester,] Friday, 19 September [1851]

Dear Marx,

Yesterday, in the greatest haste, I managed to finish the American article[1] —tel quel,[2] with many interruptions over the past 3 weeks and finally the remainder thrown together in haste. Tu en feras ce que tu pourras.[3] At all events you'll get it by the first post today.

The only letter I got after my brother's[4] arrival was yours of 31 August, which I only received on 2 September and in which you quoted the passages from Heinzen (in the Schnellpost concerning the refinement of Yankee-ness).

My laziness was due to:

I. a business trip to Bradford,

2. our clerk's departure for London, whence he won't be returning till Monday,

3. the sudden dismissal of our WAREHOUSEMAN and assistant, leaving me with my hands full.

Tomorrow or Monday I shall devote myself to the 3rd American article, which will definitely reach you in time for the next steamer—by Tuesday if there's a sailing on Wednesday, otherwise by Friday. More tomorrow; the office is now closing, and as yet we have no gas, so that I am writing virtually in darkness.

Your

F. E.


The Willich document in the Debats is superb[5] !

  1. ↑ F. Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany. Article II.
  2. ↑ such as it is
  3. ↑ You'll have to do what you can with it.
  4. ↑ probably Hermann
  5. ↑ The reference is to the appeal to the members of the separatist organisation set up by Willich and Schapper after the split in the Communist League. (Marx and Engels called this organisation the Sonderbund by analogy with the separatist union of the Swiss Catholic cantons formed in the 1840s.) The appeal adopted at the congress of this organisation in the summer of 1851 was pervaded with adventuristic tendencies and voluntaristic-sectarian ideas of carrying out a revolution without any regard for objective conditions. In September 1851 the appeal fell into the hands of the police when they arrested members of local communities of this organisation in France (see Note 478). It was published in French papers under the heading: 'Instructions pour la Ligue, avant, pendant et après la révolution'. Excerpts were also published in the Kölnische Zeitung, No. 225, 19 September 1851.