MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 16 May 1855 28 Dean Street, Soho
Dear Engels,
My wife is most unwell; the household in general still very upset. From the day we left Manchester[1] the weather here has been unremittingly awful.
Dronke, the little fool, refuses to send you the Bruno Bauer[2] until you have sent him his 'rubbers'. The Petermann[3] got packed by mistake. Would already have been returned to you if I hadn't wanted to send it at the same time as the Bruno Bauer. Tell me how you wish it done. If you send the little fool his shoes, you might at the same time send me the Decker, which I forgot.[4]
I have written to Breslau.[5] No answer yet. In the meantime write and tell me in greater detail how many sheets—whether in separate volumes or ALL TOGETHER—, charges, etc.[6]
At long last a few more Tribunes from Cluss, together with a couple of lines in which he indicates that he will be writing.
Herewith 1. The Sunday Times on the 'Soho scorpions'. 2. A cutting from The People's Paper[7] in which you may read about Mr Jones' curious negotiations with the City reformers,[8] and 'how he was brought down' (clearly the chaps wanted to have the working plebs standing in the street outside their doors as mere super- numeraries, just for SHOW and to demonstrate their movement's popularity). The business is VERY CURIOUS INDEED.
Regards to Lupus.
Your
K. M.
The Political Fly-Sheets[9] have now come out as a book. In the foreword Mr Tucker thanks me by name[10] which, with an Aliens Bill in the offing, is NOT QUITE RECOMMENDATORY.
- ↑ Marx and his wife returned to London from Manchester about 6 May 1855
- ↑ In 1854, in connection with the Crimean War and the exacerbation of the Eastern Question, Bruno Bauer published several pamphlets, among them De la dictature occidentale, Die jetzige Stellung Rußlands and Rußland und das Germanenthum. It has not been established which of these is referred to here
- ↑ Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes' geographischer Anstalt über wichtige neue Erforschungen auf dem Gesammtgebiete der Geographie, edited by A. Petermann.
- ↑ C. Decker, Der kleine Krieg im Geiste der neueren Kriegführung, Oder: Abhandlung über die Verwendung und den Gebrauch aller drei Waffen im kleinen Kriege.
- ↑ Marx may have had in mind his letter to Eisner of 17 April 1855, but he could have written to him after his return from Manchester, i.e. after 6 May 1855
- ↑ Engels planned to write a critique of pan-Slavist ideas. Ever since his removal to Manchester in 1850 Engels had been studying the language, literature and history of the Slav peoples. As can be judged from Marx' letters to Engels of 16 May and 26 June 1855, Marx negotiated the publication of Engels' pamphlet in Germany (see this volume, pp. 535 and 539). But these plans of Marx and Engels remained unfulfilled. In April 1855 at Marx's request Engels wrote two articles on this subject under the title 'Germany and Pan-Slavism' (see present edition, Vol. 14, pp. 156-62). They were published in the Neue Oder-Zeitung and under changed titles in the New-York Daily Tribune (see Note 649)
- ↑ i.e. E. Jones, 'Political Felony. Infamous Chicanery and Fraud of the Administrative Reform Association', The People's Paper, No. 158, 12 May 1855.
- ↑ Marx has in mind the supporters of the Administrative Reform Association set up in May 1855 on the initiative of liberal circles in the City. Taking advantage of the alarm in the country caused by the plight of the British army in the Crimea, the Association hoped by means of mass rallies and with the Chartists' support to bring pressure to bear on Parliament and win broader access to government posts for members of the commercial and finance bourgeoisie. The Association failed in its strivings and soon ceased to exist. Marx repeatedly wrote about the Association's activity and its relations with the Chartists; see for instance his article 'The Agitation Outside Parliament' (present edition, Vol. 14)
- ↑ See this volume, pp. 407 08, 432, 455 and 473.
- ↑ Tucker's Political Fly-Sheets, London, 1855, p. 1. 22 May