Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 29, 1858

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 29 March 1858


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

British Museum [London,] 29 March 1858

DEAR Frederic,

T h e £ 5 most gratefully received. Today a letter from Lassalle.[1] Duncker is prepared to publish my political economy on the following conditions. Every few months I am to supply instalments of 3 to 6 sheets (this was my suggestion). He is to have the right to cancel the arrangement at the third instalment. Indeed, no contract is to be definitely concluded until then. In the meantime he is to pay 3 fried- richsdors per sheet. (According to Lassalle, professors in Berlin get only 2) T h e first instalment[2] is to be READY at the end of May, i. e. the manuscript.

In my next I must let you have an outline of the first instalment so that you can tell me what you think of it. For the past two weeks I have again been VERY SICKLY and have been taking medicine for my liver. I have been much subject to relapses of late owing to prolonged work by night and, by day, a multitude of petty annoyances RESULTING FROM THE ECONOMICAL CONDITIONS OF MY DOMESTICITY.

I hope that you are quite well again. Write to me about this

POINT.

Have had a letter from Harney today, returning my wife's letter to Schramm, which is nice. T h e litde man seems annoyed at my failure to write. He no longer addresses me as DEAR M. but as Dr M. WELL. Maybe I shall send him 4 lines or so, TO CONSOLE THE LOUSY

LITTLE FELLOW.

In France, the dance is proceeding most satisfactorily. Condi- tions are very unlikely to remain peaceful throughout the summer. What d o you think of the 5 pashaliks?[3] Originally it was intended to make Pélissier their supreme CHIEF. But on closer consideration Bonaparte decided THAT THIS WOULD BE IN FACT AN ABDICATION OF POWER ON HIS PART. So it's only a half-measure, and one whereby the Spanish institution of CAPTAIN-GENERALSHIP[4] has been introduced into France lock, stock and barrel. Now doesn't this imply a collapse of centralisation and, IN FACT, a diminution of the power of the army? W E MUST HOPE that the French business won't take a SPANISH TURN, but rather that this decentralisation will merely reduce the resistance to be encountered by the revolution.

Salut..

Your

K. M.

Have you ATTENDED [noticed] that of late most of the French companies set u p on the pattern of the Crédit mobilier 4 5 have appeared before the tribunal criminel?

  1. ↑ of 26 March Economy.
  2. ↑ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political
  3. ↑ Under Napoleon Ill's decree of 27 January 1858 the whole of French territory was divided into five military districts, with Paris, Nancy, Lyons, Toulouse and Tours as their centres and Marshals Magnan, Baraguay d'Hilliers, Bosquet, Castellane and Canrobert as their commanders. Marx calls these districts pashaliks (a comparison earlier used by the French republican press), to emphasise the similarity of the unlimited powers of the reactionary Marshals and the despotic power of the Turkish pashas.—296
  4. ↑ Captain-generalships—administrative districts set up in Spain and its colonies in the sixteenth century, during the period of absolute monarchy. Civil and military power in these districts was concentrated in the hands of captain- generals, who acted as royal governors.—296