Letter to Friedrich Engels, June 1, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 1 June 1859


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,] 1 June 1859

Dear Engels,

Enclosed 1 copy of the Presse containing some particulars that may be of interest to you. No answer from that fellow, Friedländer,[1] needless to say. However, my present explanation for this is as follows: When he lectured Friedländer about bias,[2]

Lassalle did so, OF COURSE, not only in his but also in my name. Friedländer believes that I am hand in glove with Heraclitus the Dark Philosopher.[3] So he naturally can't imagine that under PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES I can write for a Viennese paper. Every day the Vienna Presse contains veiled attacks upon the Berlin wiseacre. Thus, for instance, in a leading article on 29 May:

'But how can one demand a sense of national self-respect of those speculative minds which see in Napoleon III the avenging arm of history and, in his alleged genius for liberating the peoples, complacently admire the reflection of the ineptitude, pedantry and aridity of their own categorising intellects.'

The very insistence with which Lassalle required of me not to write any more to his cousin[4] is evidence that the fellow carried on his intrigues in my name also. Thus the blockhead has frustrated the best prospect I had for the summer. Besides, in certain eventualities it would be a good thing if I had some say in the Vienna Presse.

When you next write about Garibaldi, WHATEVER MAY BE HIS FATE, crack a joke about the curious position in which only 'his uncle's nephew'[5] could have found himself, namely that beside him the leader of the volunteer corps figures as a HERO. Can you imagine anything of the kind happening under the old Napoleon? By the by, in today's Times the Paris correspondent writes that the Bonapartists are already GRUMBLING loudly about Garibaldi's 'fame', and that A FEW SELECT POLICE have been smuggled into his corps and send in detailed reports about him.[6] Adhering strictly to Mazzini's instructions, Garibaldi omitted all mention of Bonaparte in his proclamation.[7] Mazzini's latest thing[8] is not, by the by, as good as

I thought. I had only run my eye over some excerpts. His old complaints about socialism. We can do nothing with him direct. But he could with advantage be used as an authority against Kossuth, etc. By the by, in his last number,[9] which I shall send you at the end of this week, you will reacquaint yourself with Mr Karl Blind's importance.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

Incidentally, Blind is no longer with the Hermann, but is greatly mistaken if he's hoping to get onto the Volk. Feeble though the little sheet may be, it has made the entire emigration down here froth at the mouth with rage. Among others Tausenau and Co., who are paid by Kossuth-Bonaparte to form German OPINION' in London.

  1. ↑ In his letter of 17 December 1857 to Marx, Lassalle enclosed a letter from his cousin Max Friedländer to Marx inviting him to contribute to the Vienna newspaper, Die Presse. Friedländer became one of its editors in 1856. Previously he had taken part in publishing the democratic paper Neue Oder-Zeitung, to which Marx also contributed throughout 1855. Not knowing the political line of Die Presse at the time, Marx did not agree, one of the reasons being probably the condition imposed by Friedländer: to criticise Napoleon III's policy and abstain from attacking Palmerston. In 1859 negotiations with Friedländer were resumed and lasted for a long time. Their success was hampered, on the one hand, by Lassalle's pro-Bonapartist statements during the Italian war of 1859 which evoked dissatisfaction on the part of Friedländer, who for a time thought that Marx approved of these statements, and on the other hand, by the editors' tendency to be duped by the pseudo-constitutional demagogy of the new Austrian government of Schmerling, which put Marx on the alert. Only in October 1861 when Die Presse criticised the government did Marx agree to be its London correspondent.
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 434-35.
  3. ↑ Ferdinand Lassalle, author of Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos.
  4. ↑ Max Friedländer
  5. ↑ Napoleon III
  6. ↑ The Times, No. 23321, 1 June 1859.
  7. ↑ This refers to the proclamation which Garibaldi addressed to the local population upon the entry of his volunteer corps into Lombardy in May 1859 (see 'Garibaldi's Proclamation to the Lombards', The Times, No. 23319, 30 May 1859).
  8. ↑ Mazzini's manifesto 'La Guerra' published in Pensiero ed Azione, No. 17, 2-16 May 1859.
  9. ↑ Pensiero ed Azione