Letter to Friedrich Engels, October 25, 1851

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 25 October 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 Engels in Manchester

[London,] 25 October 1851

Dear Engels,

Did you get my letter of last Monday? You're so meticulous about writing that your silence disturbs me.

I have heard nothing from Pieper up to the present. If nothing has happened to him, he is being unpardonably irresponsible. Dronke has not yet arrived. Have heard nothing from Cologne. Enclosed a letter from Fischer who writes like a true democratic philistine. For the time being, il faut le laisser faire,[1] since nothing further can be done about it. If only he doesn't do anything silly where Kinkel is concerned. His letter rather gives the impression that he might.

Well, as we now learn, Kinkel had arranged matters as follows. Part of the £160 sterling was used to send Schurz on a secret mission to Belgium, France and Switzerland. He induced all the great men there, including the Parliamentarians[2] (and not excluding the LATE Raveaux), to confer plenary powers on Kinkel and, at the same time, to guarantee the debt to be contracted in respect of the future German republic.[3] Hence the vast majority are now united and E. Meyen was able to promulgate in the New-Yorker Staatszeitung the great secret that the meaning of the future movement in Germany had now been discovered, namely, the principle of nationhood. Even at the time of his finest flowering, this individual never wrote as foolishly as he does now. Intellectually, these fellows are completely bankrupt.

Addio!

Your

K. M.


I have for the time being postponed the Gohringer business. Unfortunately the jackass is leaving for Spain on 1 November, having sold his public house here. Meanwhile, I need not fear any further hostile moves from him.

  1. ↑ he must be given his head
  2. ↑ i.e. the members of the Frankfurt National Assembly
  3. ↑ A reference to the attempts by Gottfried Kinkel and other leaders of the Emigration Club to organise a so-called German-American revolutionary loan, for which purpose Kinkel went to the USA in September 1851. The loan was to be subscribed to by German-born Americans and used to begin an immediate revolution in Germany. The rival Agitation Union headed by Arnold Ruge also sent a representative to the USA to raise money for the revolution. In a number of works and letters Marx and Engels denounced the undertaking as an adventurist attempt to produce a revolution artificially in a period when the revolutionary movement was on the wane.