Letter to Friedrich Engels, November 24, 1864

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 24 November 1864


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London, 24 November 1864]

Dear FREDHUCK,

Letter from the old Hatzfeldt woman enclosed, which I would like sent back by return.

Also enclosed the letter from the man in Solingen[1] which has turned up again, and Schweitzer's letter.

I sent off 3 'Addresses'[2] to you today, 1 for yourself, 1 for Gumpert and 1 for Ernest Jones. If you can distribute some more anywhere (gratis), you only have to ask.

As for Schweitzer, I have written—not to him but to Liebknecht—that we both dislike the company, but we intend FOR A NONCE to adopt bonne mine à mauvais jeu,[3] but to disown them immediately as soon as they do anything silly. I also ask why Bûcher and especially Rodbertus are not among them![4]

Moses[5] and Herwegh (who are, incidentally, of some stature, compared with B. and Ph. Becker, IN A LITERARY SENSE) are, after all, more highly regarded by people in Germany than by us. At least, one cannot publicly denigrate them, as one can fellows like Grün, etc.

In great haste. Salut.

Your

K. M.

I have just been obliged to write long letter to the old woman[6] to extricate myself from the Blind affair she has tried to involve me in. Student Blind has, of course, not let the opportunity slip by of puffing himself up, by issuing a 'protest' in the name of the Republic[7] and selecting a few passages from Lassalle's speeches which are indeed quite sickeningly royalist.[8] Also to advise her against reproducing the 'wanted' portraits of her enemies.[9]

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 15.
  2. ↑ K. Marx, 'Inaugural Address of the Working Men's International Association'.
  3. ↑ an attitude of grin and bear it
  4. ↑ Marx's letter to Liebknecht in which Marx enquired about the contributors to Der Social-Demokrat has not been found. In his reply of 2 December 1864, Liebknecht wrote that Lothar Bucher and Johann Rodbertus had gone over to the side of the Prussian government.
  5. ↑ Moses Hess
  6. ↑ Sophie von Hatzfeldt
  7. ↑ ['A Republican Protest',] Neue Frankfurter Zeitung, No. 270, 29 September 1864; 'Republikanischer Protest', Hermann, No. 2407, 8 October 1864; Die Westliche Post, October beginning of November 1864.
  8. ↑ In this article Karl Blind, polemising with the Lassalleans, quoted Lassalle's defence speech at the Berlin assizes in March 1864.
  9. ↑ In the pamphlet in honour of Lassalle's memory (see Note 42) Countess von Hatzfeldt intended to place, next to a photograph of Lassalle on his death bed, portraits of Janko von Racowija and Helene von Dönniges, who were guilty of his death, regarding this as a form of revenge on the 'assassins'. In a letter to Marx on 21 November 1864 she asked Marx for her opinion of her intention.