Letter to Karl Marx, May 1, 1852

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 1 May 1852


First published in part 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 39


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 1 May 1852

Dear Marx,

Enclosed a 30/- POST OFFICE ORDER, which is all I can spare for the moment. True, you will not be able to cash the thing tomorrow, on account of its being Sunday, but at least you know that you've got it. Should I find myself able to send off more of the same later on this month, you can be sure you'll get it come what may, but just now I cannot say.

It's very nice to hear that the little man[1] has turned up and is getting on well, and it is all to the good that he has, for the time being, found A FRIEND IN NEED, A FRIEND INDEED in Anschütz. He must visit me some time this summer, once I have seen the back of my old man.

As to the question of the biographical sketches of the great men,[2] I have, oddly enough, long been turning over in my mind a similar idea for an alphabetically arranged collection of such biographies, which could continually be added to and kept in readiness for the great moment 'when it all starts', and then they could all at once be precipitated into the world. As for the publisher's offer, £25 is not to be sneezed at, but we must not forget that, however great the ano- and pseudonymity, everyone will realise de quel côté ces flèches viennent[3] and the responsibility would be laid at both our doors. If published in Germany under the present regime, the thing would seem to be supporting the reactionaries, and not even prefaces expressing the most irreproachable views in the world would make it seem otherwise. And that is always fatal. If the affair were restricted to a few—say, a dozen—of the more noteworthy jackasses, Kinkel, Hecker, Struve, Willich, Vogt and so forth, it might be more feasible, for the omission of our own names would not then matter very much and the things could be taken as issuing direct from the reactionaries. At any rate we ought, if possible, to write it together.[4] So decide what you think is best and nous verrons. £25 valent bien un peu de scandale[5]

Cluss' letter will be returned next week. I'll do the thing for Szerelmey.[6] By midday today the Americans had not yet arrived, maybe they are waiting for me now at home.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Ernst Dronke
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 93.
  3. ↑ which direction these barbs are coming from
  4. ↑ It was in early 1851 that Marx and Engels conceived the idea of publishing a satirical exposé of the leaders of the petty-bourgeois democratic emigration. Engels wanted to publish a series of articles about 'continental democracy' in the weekly Friend of the People (see present edition, Vol. 38, p. 278) and in the autumn of 1851 he began writing a satirical article about Karl Schapper. As is seen from Marx's letters to Ebner (see Note 122), he had the literary portraits of Rüge, Kinkel, Willich and others ready as early as 1851. In late April and early May 1852 he continued collecting facts and material on this subject and received great help in this from Cluss and Weydemeyer, who sent him newspaper cuttings describing activities of various emigrant organisations in America. On the basis of the facts collected Marx and Engels drew up a political pamphlet during May and June 1852. It was tentatively entitled The Great Men and was to consist of two parts. Only the manuscript of the first part has survived. The pamphlet was not published during the authors' lifetime, but separate chapters became known to the émigré leaders, its 'heroes' (see this volume, p. 124). Some excerpts were sent to Cluss in America in May 1852. A proposal to publish the manuscript was made by a Hungarian emigre, Bangya, who, as it turned out later, had been a police spy since 1851 and kept Greif, a Prussian police agent in London, fully informed about Marx. Marx learned about Bangya's actions only at the end of 1852 and publicly exposed them in the article 'Hirsch's Confessions' (see present edition, Vol. 12). The manuscript copy that has survived was written mainly by Engels with additions by Marx. The first pages are in Dronke's hand. The pamphlet is published in Vol. 11 of the present edition
  5. ↑ we shall see. £25 is well worth a bit of a row.
  6. ↑ See this volume, p. 93.