Letter to Karl Marx, November 16, 1864

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 16 November 1864


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 16 November 1864

Dear Moor,

Glad that the carbuncle is getting better. Let us hope it is the last. But do take arsenic.

Acknowledgement from the charming private secretary[1] gratefully received.

A few lines for Schweitzer enclosed.[2] It is a very good thing that we shall again be getting a voice in the press; also very good that Liebknecht is going to be co-editor (as long as he is under no illusions); that does at least provide some safeguard. Meanwhile, we shall do better if we conceal our enthusiasm, as 1. Liebknecht is no diplomat, and one cannot rely too much on his clairvoyance, 2. the countess[3] will, above all, be trying to swamp the paper from beginning to end with a deliberate 'apotheosis',[4] and 3. we really must find out first who else has been approached. Perhaps you are better informed than I am, but in the letters from Liebknecht you sent me there is no mention of the paper nor of this man Schweitzer, so I am very much in the dark. For that reason, I have asked for some clarification about the company we shall be seen to be keeping. We might after all find ourselves cheek by jowl with Mr Karl Grün or some such scum.

And what a dreadful title: Der Socialdemokrat! Why do these fellows not simply call it the Proletarier?

Enclosed papers returned with thanks. Why haven't you sent the Solingen letter[5] you promised?

Amid the nonsense written by Emma Herwegh,[6] I notice there is a further attempt to turn Lassalle into a demi-god, as follows: only his mighty spirit kept him alive for so long, anyone else would have given up the ghost 2 hours after being wounded—but you ask Allen some time about the way peritonitis develops following a wound, and he will tell you inflammation hardly sets in at all within 2 hours, and is scarcely ever fatal in less than 24 hours, and usually not until much later. These people are really given to deification.

Schaaffhausen in Bonn has given a pretty lecture on man and apes, pointing out that Asiatic anthropoids have rounded heads, like the human beings there, but in Africa both are long-headed, and commenting that, with the present state of knowledge, this is the strongest argument against the unity of the human race. Someone ought to try saying that at a gathering of naturalists in England!

It is splendid how Müller and the Rev. Cappell have made fools of that gang Kinkel, Juch & Co. even from the gallows. It is a long time since I have come across anything quite so absurd as the conduct of these fellows. How fortunate Gottfried[7] is in the people whose cases he takes up! First MacDonald, then Müller. And then the way these gentlemen threw their weight around was the immediate cause of Koehl cutting that other lad's throat in the Thames marshes.36 Just you wait and see what a mass of mares nests they unearth concerning that affair, too. Kindest regards to the family.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Laura Marx (a reference to Marx's receipt of money in respect of Wolff's legacy; see this volume, p. 20)
  2. ↑ Engels' letter to Schweitzer has not been found. This letter of Engels to Marx and Marx's reply of 18 November 1864 show that Engels wrote to Schweitzer expressing his agreement to contribute to Der Social-Demokrat but asked Schweitzer first to let him know who the proposed contributors were.
  3. ↑ Sophie von Hatzfeldt
  4. ↑ of Lassalle
  5. ↑ See this volume, pp. 15, 20.
  6. ↑ ibid., p. 12.
  7. ↑ Gottfried Kinkel