| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 3 September 1852 |
MARX TO ADOLF CLUSS[1]
IN WASHINGTON
[London, 3 September 1852]
It has been put about here that Gebert, a bottle-loving journeyman tailor and a myrmidon of Willich's, had left for America. That is not so. At the beginning of August Kinkel and Willich sent him to Germany as their emissary.
As these people harp on 'organisations' in their circular—the last one to the guarantors—and on the whole have no connections in Germany, the remnants of the Communist League there who for one reason or another have no contact with Cologne were to provide a semblance of, and pretext for, such 'organisations'.[2] And then the gentlemen also had to account for the sum of £200. Hence a certain sum of money had to be spent in one quarter or another in such a manner that it could decently be described as 'revolutionary expenditure'. They hoped the remainder of what had been spent could then be more easily passed off. Finally, Marx, Engels and co. were to be destroyed (sic) in the eyes of working men in Germany. Kinkel thought that, having begged
and lied his way into the esteem of the remnants of the Communist League, he could palm off the latter on to his bourgeois guarantors as a bourgeois-democratic connection. Willich, the representative imposed upon the German workers by himself and Kinkel, at last saw a chance of creating for himself a real following of workers in Germany.
To continue. In Magdeburg, Gebert assembled a so-called communist community; for 3 consecutive days discussions were held, 26-30 members taking part; in the chair was one Hammel (nomen omen[3] ); during the debates Marx and Engels were attacked with much acrimony, the main task laid down being to destroy them, their influence and their 'doctrines'. (Brother Hammel may not find this last so easy.) In addition to various administrative and organisational questions, there arose the question of how and in what manner a printing-house might be set up. They succeeded in finding an impoverished printer of books with a business in or near Magdeburg and concluded an agreement with him. He placed his office at their disposal for propaganda, the name of the firm being retained as it was. In return he was paid 100 talers down and given a bill of exchange for 350 talers, which he is to receive after one year.
Thus the revolutionary funds are to serve the purpose of propaganda for that creature, Kinkel-Willich, and of promoting intrigue to split up the 'organisations' in Germany.
But the best is still to come. The Prussian police were informed of everything from the moment the innocuous Gebert left London, whereas everyone here imagined he had slipped off to America. The government had its informant at the loutish assembly at Magdeburg; he took down the entire debate in shorthand. Gebert, who has now gone to Berlin, had a Prussian policeman in train. He is not allowed out of sight for an instant. The government intend to allow him to fulfil his mission, by which time he will have compromised dozens of others besides himself.
I have this intelligence—Willich, too, has been bragging about his 'agents' in Germany—from a Prussian police headquarters in which I have planted a séide.[4]
Qu'en dis-tu?[5] So these knaves are providing the Prussian government with an opportunity to introduce fresh complications into the Cologne trial, etc.
And to what purpose? To cover up their shady accounts, to disguise the pointlessness of all their revolutionary committee doings hitherto, to excite their feeble spirits against their foes, etc., etc. Just now the thing must still be kept secret. But as soon as you see that Gebert has been pulled in, or that arrests of 'communists' have begun, let fire without waiting to hear anything more....