Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 6, 1852

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 6 May 1852


First published much 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 39


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 6 May 1852 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Frederic,

The parcel didn't go off to you because Pickford's demanded 2/6d from my wife. And the whole lot put together isn't worth that much.

The strange note enclosed herewith is a hastily made copy of a circular sent out by Messrs Kinkel and Willich to their affiliates.[1]

The funniest thing about it is that one of their heads of sections invariably carries these scraps to Hebeler, the Prussian Consul-General, who pays him for them. The Prussian government, of course, no less than Kinkel-Willich, possesses the key to these portentous mysteries. Indeed Willich, for all his principles and scruples, has after all accepted a position on the definitive committee. Where the money is, there you will find Willich.

A coup quelconque[2] is intended, so much is certain. General Klapka has already left for Malta, in his pocket a commission signed by Kossuth and Mazzini appointing him general command-ing the Italo-Hungarian army. I believe a start is to be made in Sicily. Unless these gentlemen suffer defeat and receive a drubbing twice a year, they feel ill at ease. That world history continues to unfold without their help, without their intervention, and without, indeed, official intervention, is something they refuse to admit. If things go wrong, as they are sure to do, Mr Mazzini will have a renewed opportunity for self-assertion in outraged letters to a Graham quelconque.[3] Nor will his digestion suffer in consequence.

I am now correcting Bangya's translation of Szemere's character-sketches written in Hungarian. While the original must be splendid, it has to be laboriously reconstructed from the wretched and often almost incomprehensible translation which is constantly at loggerheads with the rules of grammar and the consecutio temporum.[4] This much is clear: the deposition of the Austrian dynasty which, at the time of its proclamation, was unpolitical and pernicious, was engineered by Mr Lajos Kossuth so as to secure for himself the post of governor, for he feared that, if he hesitated, he would later see it devolve unopposed on the victorious Görgey. Lajos was also responsible for the mistake of storming Ofen instead of marching on Vienna, since he was itching to celebrate with his family his triumphant entry into the capital.[5]

Apropos. I have just received a letter from Bangya. The publisher in Berlin has now made a definite offer: £25 for 5-6 sheets of character-sketches, 24 free copies. I shall receive the money from Bangya as soon as I deliver the manuscript to him. But the man wants it quickly.

My plan is as follows: for the time being I shall do a brouillon[6] with Dronke, which will plus ou moins[7] obliterate my style. So it might be possible for you and me to get the thing[8] READY in a fortnight's time. At all events you must let me have some more information about Willich (during the campaign[9] and in Switzerland) in your CURRENT LETTERS.

Enclosed letter from Cluss. Yesterday Freiligrath and I were with Trübner, the bookseller. He believes he can dispose of a number of copies of the Revolution[10] here in London and place a further quantity in Germany through Campe. So as soon as Weydemeyer's copies arrive, forward them here. The Turn-Zeitung seems to have gone astray.

Your

K. Marx

  1. ↑ After Kinkel's return from the USA, the committee which was to organise the 'German-American revolutionary loan' decided at its sitting in London on 16 April 1852 to reactivate the local sections. With this aim in view it distributed an instruction circular drawn up by Kinkel and Willich. Marx writes here about a copy of it made and sent to him by Bangya. On Bangya's spying activities, see Note 131
  2. ↑ some coup or other
  3. ↑ An allusion to the fact that in 1844-45 Mazzini protested in the press against Italian revolutionary emigrants' letters being opened by the police. His pamphlet, 'Italy, Austria and the Pope. A letter to Sir James Graham', was published in May 1845 in periodicals and separately. At that time James Graham was Home Secretary and it was on his orders that Italian revolutionary emigrants' letters were delivered to the police
  4. ↑ sequence of tenses
  5. ↑ On 14 April 1849, the Hungarian National Assembly, on Kossuth's initiative, proclaimed the independence of Hungary and the overthrow of the Habsburg dynasty. On 2 May the Defence Council was replaced by a Council of Ministers headed by Szemere. Kossuth was elected ruler of Hungary. The siege of Ofen (Buda) by the Hungarian army under Görgey lasted from 4 to 21 May 1849 and ended in the taking of the fortress. The storm was effected after the defeat of the Austrian troops near Komarom on 22 April 1849, which provided favourable conditions for the Hungarian revolutionary army to march on Vienna. See Engels' appraisal of the military operations during the siege of Buda in his article 'Buda', present edition, Vol. 17
  6. ↑ rough draft
  7. ↑ more or less
  8. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, The Great Men of the Exile.
  9. ↑ Willich's service in the Baden Palatinate insurgent army in the spring of 1849.
  10. ↑ The issue of Die Revolution, in which Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte appeared.