Letter to Carl Siebel, February 27, 1865

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 27 February 1865


First published in Deutsche Zeitung, No. 473, 16 October 1920
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO CARL SIEBEL

IN ELBERFELD

Manchester, 27 February 1865

Dear Siebel,

Marx has sent you our statement denouncing the Social-Demokrat in Berlin.[1] In the meantime, to do something positive to prevent the people from lumping us together with Bismarckery, I have written a pamphlet,[2] and O. Meissner in Hamburg has accepted it. I should be grateful if you would arrange for a notice concerning it to be placed in the Düsseldorfer Zeitung and other papers to which you have access, with something like the following content:

A pamphlet by Fr. Engels entitled The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party will shortly be published by Otto Meissner in Hamburg. It originated at the request of a so-called 'social-democratic' paper[3] to the author to express his views on the subject in that paper.[4] Detailed treatment of the subject, however, required more space than a newspaper could command; the pro-Bismarck direction adopted by the latest 'Social-Democracy' furthermore made it impossible for the people at the Neue Rheinische Zeitung to collaborate with the organs of this particular 'Social-Democracy'. In these circumstances, the above-mentioned work is being published independently in pamphlet-form...[5]

You will need to act quickly as Meissner has written that the pamphlet was already going to be distributed on 24 February. It will vex the Lassallean clique most dreadfully, the men of Progress no less so, and not least Monsieur Bismarck. There are some most impudent things in it which have previously, for the most part, been passed over with tactful timidity. As long as the press does not again totally ignore the thing[6] with its fulminations against all and sundry, the story will have some effect.

So, be quick now! This is all important. For the Rheinische Zeitung I shall supply the necessary material through Dr Klein in Cologne.

Best wishes to your wife.

Your

F. E.

N.B. You can further add: and sets out the views of the 'Social-Democrats' of 1848 with regard to both the government and the Party of Progress.

  1. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'To the Editor of the Social Demokrat'.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party.
  3. ↑ Der Social Demokrat
  4. ↑ See this volume, pp. 67 69.
  5. ↑ Engels' notice announcing the publication of his pamphlet The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 81) was printed anonymously in a number of German papers with the help of Carl Siebel, Johann Klein and Wilhelm Liebknecht (Engels' letters to Klein and Liebknecht requesting to publish the notice have not been found). The notice was published anonymously in Berliner Reform (No. 53), Düsseldorfer Zeitung (No. 62), Elberfelder Zeitung (No. 62) and Rheinische Zeitung (No. 62) on 3 March 1865; Oberrheinische Courier (No. 56) on 7 March, and others. Moreover, on 9 March the Rheinische Zeitung carried a special article 'Für die Arbeiterpartei' about Engels' pamphlet containing long passages from it.
  6. ↑ Engels is referring to the silence of the German press over his anonymously published pamphlets Po and Rhine (1859) and Savoy, Nice and the Rhine (1860) (see present edition, Vol. 16).