| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 25 May 1859 |
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 25 May 1859
Dear Fred,
As things stand here just now, it's doubtful whether I shall be able to leave London, certainly not at the beginning of next week.
It is now a whole fortnight, or so I see from a note in my DIARY, since I sent that scoundrel Duncker the last 3 proof-sheets (i. e. sheets 9-11). The thing[1] was ready, therefore, and all the chap had to do was send me the clean proofs of the last 3 sheets for the list of misprints. Instead of that, what do I get? Lassalle's pamphlet[2] and, as we hadn't any money in the house and pretty well everything has been pawned that can be pawned, I had to send my last wearable coat to the pawnshop since there was 2/- to pay on this rubbish, which might perhaps cost 8d in Berlin. But to come to the point:
It is now EVIDENT, then, that a further fortnight's embargo has been placed on my thing in order to make way for Mr Lassalle. The work still to be done on it would take 3 hours at the most. But that infernal and conceited fool has decreed the embargo in order to secure the undivided attention of the public. Duncker, the swine, is happy as a sandboy, however, since it gives him a further excuse to postpone payment of my fee. I shan't forget the trick the little Jew has played. The speed with which his tripe was printed shows that he was magna pars[3] responsible for our stuff being delayed. Besides the oaf is so enamoured of his laborious emanations that he takes it for granted that I'm burning with impatience to see his 'anonymous' pamphlet and am 'objective' enough to take the killing of my stuff as a matter of course.
The confounded Jew in Vienna[4] hasn't written either. Lupus is greatly mistaken about Liebknecht if he imagines that this worthy citizen could himself have composed a piece such as 'Der Reichsregent'. Biskamp wrote it[5] (I gave him the FACTS) and it must be Biskamp that writes everything. Nothing is attributable to Liebknecht save the 'Politische Rundschau', dated London with the symbol IT, and not even all of that.[6] Liebknecht's uselessness as a writer is only equalled by his unreliability and weakness of character, about which I shall have more to say later. The fellow would have been kicked out for good this week had there not been special circumstances that necessitated his being kept on for a while as a scarecrow.
Even if my private circumstances—apart from waiting for Duncker—were not likely to preclude my coming up to Manchester next week, there would be the further consideration that, were I to abandon my post, everything might easily go to rack and ruin in view of the vast intrigues being conjured up here, there, and everywhere by the emigre democrats, the merchants of Camberwell, the Weitlingians, etc., etc., and in view of the extraordinary feebleness of the people who are supposed to represent us here. Yesterday, by the by, I got Pfänder to give categoric instructions to that inert hunk of flesh, Schapper, to the effect that if he did not rejoin the Workers' Society (the so-called communist one)[7] forthwith and take over the MANAGEMENT thereof, I would sever all 'connections' with him. This is the one sphere in which we could make use of the hippopotamus, yet the fool thinks it beneath him. Mais nous verrons.[8] Never have we had a poorer STAFF. Pieper would have been very useful just now, instead of which he is in Bremen and doesn't even write.
Salut. Your
K. M.