Letter to Karl Marx, August 3, 1859

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 August 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, 3 August 1859

7 Southgate

Dear Moor,

Herewith the beginning of the article about your book.[1] Take a good look at it and, if you don't like it in toto, tear it up and let me have your opinion. Through lack of practice I have grown so unused to this sort of writing that your wife will be greatly tickled by my awkwardness. If you can knock it into shape, do so. A few convincing examples of the materialistic viewpoint would not come amiss, in place of my indifferent reference to the February revolution[2]

As soon as I've done with this thing, I shall set to work on 'Infantry', which will, however, demand a good deal of time and trouble, despite Rüstow, who must, of course, be treated with some reserve.[3]

Can you shed any further light on the particulars contained in Crawshay's letter in The Free Press of 27 July regarding the Russian document?[4] Surely the 'German' isn't Mr Bücher? And in which German paper is the thing supposed to have appeared?[5]

When you saw Blind, did you speak to him about the Vogt affair?[6] N'y avait-il rien à faire?[7]

The gentle Heinrich[8] is acquitting himself well in his new role. Gloomy as ever, but all the lazier for that, redeeming the world by his courageous and intelligent GRUMBLING.

Lupus has had another adventure, this time with a parson who swapped travelling bags with him. The deadly earnestness of the affair was, however, alleviated by the fact that the bag that had been left behind contained the said parson's MAIDEN SERMON which he was due to rattle off the following day. This lent the thing certain humorous extérieurs, otherwise Lupus was again on the point of exclaiming: * 'There are so many rogues in this country, and not of the working class, but of the middle class.' *

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, 'K. Marx. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'.
  2. ↑ Engels means the 1848 revolution in France and subsequent revolutionary events in other European countries.
  3. ↑ W. Rüstow, Geschichte der Infanterie.
  4. ↑ G. Crawshay, 'The Russian Memoir of 1837', The Free Press, No. 8, 27 July 1859.
  5. ↑ Crawshay's letter, published in The Free Press, No. 8, 27 July 1859, stated that the 'Russian Memoir' had been published in 1855 in a German newspaper (it was the Preussisches Wochenblatt zur Besprechung politischer Tagesfragen—see Note 452) and that it had been translated for The Free Press by 'a German'. The letter gave no indication as to the identity of that 'German'.—479
  6. ↑ About the middle of July 1859 Marx talked with Blind, Liebknecht and Hollinger, the owner of the print-shop in which Das Volk was printed, about the anti-Vogt anonymous pamphlet Zur Warnung (A Warning) which had been reprinted in Das Volk, No. 7, 18 June and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 173, 22 June. The pamphlet exposed Vogt as a bribed Bonapartist agent. During the conversation, Marx gave it as his opinion that the pamphlet had been written by Blind as it contained facts which the latter had related to him at a public meeting on 9 May 1859 (see Note 420); Marx also pointed out that the proofs of the pamphlet, discovered by Liebknecht in Hollinger's print-shop in mid-June and sent by him to the Allgemeine Zeitung contained corrections in Blind's handwriting. However, Blind, unwilling openly to attack Vogt, denied his authorship. His attitude was later condemned by Marx in his polemi cal work Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 122-32).—479, 486, 498. 503, 539
  7. ↑ Could nothing be done about it?
  8. ↑ Heinrich Bürgers