Letter to Karl Marx, July 25, 1859

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 25 July 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
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 25 July 1859

Dear Moor,

Have written to Duncker.[1] Also about the total absence up till now of any advertisements of your book[2] in the Augsburg

Allgemeine Zeitung and Kölnische Zeitung. I can't possibly do an article on it this week; it is quite an undertaking and I should have had NOTICE of it somewhat earlier. Besides, I've begun the military article[3] and want to get it finished quickly. However, I promise to do the article for next week.[4]

Some nonsense was edited into my last article. I said that, during the march from Pavia, the 5th corps so exerted itself on the 3rd and 4th[5] that, had the 4'/2 hours lost through the halt been put to use, the result would not have been materially different, nor would the corps have arrived on the battle-field

appreciably earlier. In print it says that it was the halt alone which made that exertion possible, which 1. is just the opposite and 2. is nonsense. In the first place the troops were not in the least tired at 6 o'clock in the morning of the 3rd, having only fust moved off, so that the halt could be of no benefit to them, and secondly the halt deprived them of the cool hours of the morning and forced them to march when the midday heat was at its greatest. To any military man, the sentence as it now stands would seem quite preposterous. Much good all these stylistic improvements do me anyway, if printing errors are responsible for the most egregious nonsense, e.g. rest for thrust (!) and so forth. My articles are particularly distinguished by this kind of nonsense, the remainder being tolerably well corrected.

How, by the way, could you permit Herwegh's lousy poem[6] to be included?

Quanto al danaro,[7] Dronke will be back here again in a fortnight's time (about 10 days from now, that is), so I shall have to put everything off till then. Nor have I any news of Lupus. Where to get money from in the meantime is difficult to say. I'll try Heckscher, but just now I have my hands full and a great deal of my time is taken up with the article on your book. If only Strohn were here! Gumpert is at home, confined to bed with laryngitis and unable to speak. However, I shall see; if at all possible Heckscher will have to keep the paper going this week. But the miserly Freiligrath should certainly be made to cough up.

How funny that you should have obtained so flattering an opinion from Mr Liebknecht too.[8] It's just like these folk. The gentlemen are so used to our doing their thinking for them that invariably and without exception they want to have everything presented to them not only on a platter, but already pre-digested, not only the quintessence in the smallest possible space, but also a detailed exposition, READY COOKED AND DRIED. One is expected to perform miracles, ni plus ni moins.[9] What does an ass of that species really want? As though he couldn't discover for himself from the first 3 lines of the preface that this first instalment was to be followed by at least 15 others before he got to the final conclusions. Naturally, the solutions to ticklish monetary problems, etc., mean nothing whatever to Liebknecht, seeing that such problems simply don't exist for him. But the least one could ask of

such a blockhead is that he should take in at least those few points that happen to suit his book. However, what recks a cow of Sunday?

The Russian document[10] ought not to be reprinted in such short BITS, otherwise one completely loses the thread.[11] Mr Petersen's lucubrations also become tedious in the long run.[12] It's true you were in difficulty last week.

Mr Bonaparte's speeches get ever more comical. The one he made before the diplomatic corps is really too funny.[13] And the fellow kept clapping his hand to his sword all the while! The fool seems quite seriously determined to impose himself on the world as the 'old one',[14] at least so far as le dehors[15] is concerned.

Kossuth has been spreading it about that he's been away in Lussinpiccolo![16]

Many regards.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Engels' letter to Duncker has not been found.
  2. ↑ A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
  3. ↑ 'The Italian War. Retrospect'
  4. ↑ 'Karl Marx. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'
  5. ↑ 3 and 4 June 1859. Engels speaks of the first instalment of his article 'The Italian War. Retrospect'.
  6. ↑ Georg Herwegh's poem written on the occasion of the Federal Marksmen's Festival in Zurich and published in Das Volk, No. 12, 23 July 1859.
  7. ↑ As for money
  8. ↑ See this volume, p. 473.
  9. ↑ neither more nor less
  10. ↑ In publishing the 'Memoir on Russia' on 13 July 1859 the editors of The Free Press wrote that the document had been discovered during the 'Prussian ministerial crisis'. This put Engels on his guard and made him, like Marx (see his letter to Engels of 19 July 1859, this volume, p. 470), doubt the authenticity of some of the passages. And indeed, from subsequent issues of The Free Press (of 27 and 31 July 1859) it appeared that the publication was based not on the original document but on material published in the German conservative newspaper Preussisches Wochenblatt zur Besprechung politischer Tagesfragen, Nos. 23, 24 and 25, June 9, 16 and 23, 1855. This publication quoted neither the source from which the document had been taken nor its title or the full text. Later Bismarck in his memoirs (Gedanken und Erinnerungen, Stuttgart, 1898, Bd. 1, S. 111-112) stated outright that the publication had been a forgery. Though Marx and Engels were sceptical about the document, they did not know that it was completely false. Therefore Marx had it reprinted, from The Free Press, in the New-York Daily Tribune (early August) and in Das Volk (late July-early August 1859) prefacing it with an 'Introductory Note' (see present edition, Vol. 16, p. 415).
  11. ↑ 'Russisches Memoir zur Belehrung des gegenwärtigen Kaisers' (Das Volk, Nos. 12-16, 23 and 30 July and 6, 13 and 20 August 1859), a German translation of 'Memoir on Russia' published in The Free Press, No. 7, 13 July 1859.
  12. ↑ [N.] P[etersen,] 'Feierstunden-Arbeit eines Arbeiters', Das Volk, Nos. 8-10, 12 and 16, 25 June; 2, 9 and 23 July; 20 August 1859.
  13. ↑ Napoleon III made this speech on 21 July 1859 and it was published in Le Moniteur universel, No. 203, 22 July 1859.
  14. ↑ Napoleon I
  15. ↑ outward appearance
  16. ↑ Town in Lussin island in the Adriatic, then under Austrian rule.