Letter to Friedrich Engels, October 12, 1853

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 12 October 1853


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, Berlin, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 12 October 1853

Dear Engels,

£2 received. It was all the more welcome as Oxford, Freiligrath's principal, is not yet back from his travels, and thus the matter has been delayed.[1]

As regards the Tribune, I shall have Article II on Palmerston[2] READY for Friday.[3] Article III, the final one, which covers the period 1848-53, calls for so many Blue Books and PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES that I can't possibly have it ready by Tuesday,[4] particularly with Sunday FALLING OUT AS FAR AS THE BRITISH MUSEUM IS CONCERNED. So it would be of enormous use to me and would also save me time if you could supply me with something for Tuesday. But what? I really don't know. Perhaps current affairs, to which I would simply append the most recent news. Perhaps, if you have kept up with the subject—not very much is WANTED FOR MESSRS GREELEY AND M C ELRATH—the influence of the impending crisis on DOING AWAY WITH THE BONAPARTE REGIME. I think it high time that attention was drawn to France where, after all, the catastrophe will break out. Failure of the corn and grape harvests. Paris, with its lower bread prices, attracting workers from all over France and thus recruiting the revolutionary army, while these new arrivals depress the already falling WAGES of the Parisians. Bread RIOTS in Alsace-Lorraine, Champagne. Grumbling by the peasants over the preference given to Paris, by the workers over the expensive wooing of the army, by the bourgeois over forcible interference with economic laws for the benefit of the workers. Falling demand, particularly for luxury articles. CLOSING of WORKSHOPS beginning. In contrast to the general misère, LAVISH EXPENDITURE and stock-jobbing by the Bonaparte family. HOLLOWNESS of the entire credit system, turned into nothing more or less than a colossal institutionalised racket under the direction of the Lumpenproletariat emperor and the Jew Fould. Bourse, bank, railways, mortgage banks and any other institutionalised racket you may care to name. The last days of the Louis Philippe regime all over again, but with all the beastliness and none of the REDEEMING FEATURES of the Empire and the Restoration.

PRESSURE of the government on the Bank. Tax collector mulcting the land more rigorously than ever. Vast difference between the advance estimates and the actual budget. All municipal administrations atrociously in debt—because PROSPERITY has to be propped up. Then the influence of the ORIENTAL QUESTION on FUNDS, with the court itself dangerously exploiting fluctuations in the stocks. DÉMORALISATION of the army. Special stress should be laid on the fact that none of the manifestos, proclamations, etc., by Ledru, L. Blanc and other kindred spirits of all complexions have succeeded in removing the evil, whereas the social and economic crisis is setting the whole caboodle in motion, etc. etc. I don't know, of course, whether the subject will appeal to you. At any rate let me know whether or not I can expect an articulum[5] by Tuesday, so that I can act accordingly.[6]

Your

K. M.

In last week's Economist—(Saturday's, so really this week's) there's all sorts of stuff in its Paris Correspondence.[7]

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 385.
  2. ↑ K. Marx, 'Lord Palmerston', Art. II sent on 14 October was published in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 3916, 4 November 1853 as a leading article under the title 'II. Palmerston and Russia'.
  3. ↑ 14 October
  4. ↑ 18 October
  5. ↑ article
  6. ↑ On Tuesday, 18 October 1853, Marx dispatched to New York 'The Turkish Manifesto.— France's Economic Position'. Engels may have taken part in writing it
  7. ↑ 'Foreign Correspondence', The Economist, No. 528, 8 October 1853.