Letter to Friedrich Engels, April 29, 1858

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 29 April 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
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 29 April 1858

DEAR Frederick,

My long silence can be explained in one word—inability to write. This existed (AND TO SOME DEGREE EXISTS STILL) not only IN THE

LITERARY, but IN THE LITERAL SENSE OF THE WORD. The few obligatory articles for the Tribune[1] were dictated to my wife, but even that was only possible by APPLYING STRONG STIMULI. Never before have I had such a violent attaque of liver trouble and FOR SOME TIME there was a

fear that it might be sclerosis of the liver. The doctor wanted me to travel but d'abord[2] that was incompatible with the STATE OF FINANCE, and secondly I hoped from day to day to be able to start work again. The persistent urge to get down to WORK coupled with inability to do so helped aggravate my condition. However there's been an improvement during the past week. But I'm not yet capable of working. Whenever I sit down and write for a couple of hours I have to lie quite fallow for a couple of days. I hope to heaven that this state of affairs comes to an end next week. It couldn't have happened at a more inconvenient time. Obviously I overdid my nocturnal labours last winter. Hinc illae lacrimae.[3]

Your letters and Guardians arrived safely. A book has appeared by Louis Blanc on the revolution of 1848.[4]

Evinces the most candid admiration for the petit[5] which, or so he says, is what the workers call him. If read carefully, however, it makes the fellow look an ass for it shows that on every crucial occasion the workers acted without his knowledge or consent and generally returned him sentiment for 'sentiment', taking the view that they had thereby paid the oracle of Luxembourg his FULL

PRICE.[6]

The movement for the emancipation of the serfs in Russia strikes me as important in so far as it indicates the beginning of an internal development that might run counter to the country's traditional foreign policy. Herzen, of course, has discovered afresh that 'liberty' has emigrated from Paris to Moscow.

Friend Bangya, AS IT SEEMS, has been caught out by Sefer Pasha's son[7] engaging in unauthorised correspondence with Philipson, the Russian general. It is said that he HAS BEEN SHOT together with a number of his Hungarian and Polish accomplices.

Regards to Lupus.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ K. Marx, 'The French Trials in London', "The Financial Position of France', 'Mr Disraeli's Budget', 'The English Alliance'.
  2. ↑ first of all
  3. ↑ Hence these tears (Terence, Andria, I, i, 99).
  4. ↑ L. Blanc, 1848. Historical Revelations...
  5. ↑ the little one
  6. ↑ Marx refers to the Government Commission on the Workers' Question which met at the Palais du Luxembourg and was presided over by Louis Blanc. The Commission was set up on 28 February 1848 by the Provisional Government of the French Republic under pressure from workers who demanded a Ministry of Labour. It consisted of workers and employers and acted as a mediator in labour conflicts, often taking the side of the employers. On the very next day after the mass actions of 15 May 1848, the government disbanded the Luxembourg Commission.—310
  7. ↑ Prince Ibrahim Karabatir