Letter to Friedrich Engels, March 10, 1865

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 March 1865


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


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 10 MARCH [1865]

DEAR FRED,

I can only write these few lines today, as I have much else to do. The statement from Herwegh and Rustow[1] is good. The impudence of Mr Schweitzer, who knows perfectly well that all I need to do is publish his own letters, is fantastic. Though what else can the wretched cur do?

As you will already have guessed, the scrawl he quotes from the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung is from student 'Blind'. I'm sending you the first No. of this lackeyb of the deposed Kings of Democracy and Holloway-type 'SELF-ADVERTISERS' and 'PUFFERS'. YOU must arrange for a few jokes about the fellow to reach Siebel, for him to hawk around to the various papers.

By the by, if there should be a 2nd impression of your pamphlet,c we can, in a short preface, make a brief official statement on our position with regard to the Lassalle shit and the Social-Demokrat. It would be, of course, beneath our dignity to take up the cudgels directly with that gang of riff-raff in minor journals.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ In its issue No. 31 of 8 March 1865, Der Social-Demokrat published the statement by Georg Herwegh and Friedrich Wilhelm Rüstow of their refusal, following Marx and Engels, to contribute to this newspaper. Commenting on the statement, Schweitzer distorted Marx's and Engels' attitude to Lassalle and falsified the reasons for their withdrawal from the editorial board of Der Social-Demokrat. To prove that Marx and Engels were allegedly inconsistent and their actions unjustified, Schweitzer quoted Karl Blind's article published in the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung, No. 64, 5 March 1865.