Letter to Karl Marx, August 16, 1865

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 16 August 1865


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 August 1865

Dear Moor,

That unctuous trash from the Hatzfeldt woman[1] really is unctuous trash with all that is in it about Lassalle the only saviour, Liebknecht, etc. Dear old LIBRARY[2] has really surpassed himself this time in his customary spinelessness, lack of imagination and forgetfulness, that is, unless the whole report is a fabrication. The devil take such an advocatus.

Ditto our sparkling-wine enthusiast Siebold. With what self-assured naivety the fellow tried to 'reconcile' you to Blind![3] And then those interesting 'old Swedes' whom nobody has ever heard of and whom we're supposed to write to, to make 'contact'. Quite à la Harro Harring. I'm increasingly coming round to think that from the most southerly latitude of North Friesland onwards everything beyond urban bourgeois and peasant politics is pure Harro Harring.[4] But no doubt you will be having that dolt on your back every year.

Next week (about Friday 25th inst.) Moore and I are going to Germany and Switzerland for a fortnight, and maybe we shall also 'cast a casual glance' over Italy.[5] If I can so arrange it, I shall call in briefly at Modena Villas[6] on my way back.

The 28th of this month, i.e. Monday week, is the date of the General Meeting of the Cologne-Minden shareholders, which will decide Prussia's politics for the next few years. I can't imagine that those fellows will be such jackasses as to pay out 13 mill. talers in cash to Bismarck without having the approval of the Chambers.[7]

But your liberal Rhineland burgher is capable of a good many tricks the moment he has a chance of swindling the state, and thinks that in his capacity as Deputy he can obtain indemnity for himself afterwards. But if the deal were to fall through, or if it were made conditional on authorisation by the Chambers, that would be more or less the end for Monsieur Bismarck; even that adventurer would not survive such a defeat in financialibus[8] and after such a desperate attempt. But the fact that he is momentarily coming to terms with Austria again, shows that intellectually and morally he is au bout de son latin.[9] He knows only too well that he can't start a war without being brought down immediately, so he goes on lashing out with big talk, chalking up little gains and turning Germany into the laughing stock of the world. But the philistine is almost as much impressed by him as by Boustrapa.[10]

The philistine now no longer requires even ephemeral victories from his idols, but only that they can brag. This is how Classen-Kappelmann became the idol of Cologne as well, because he took to his heels at the crucial moment.[11]

It was also a nice thought of Siebold's to put in a good word for C. V. Rimestad in Copenhagen, who is one of the Dagbladet people! The so-called Workers' Association is a propaganda organisation of the Scandinavian Eider-Danes and the Hall ministry.[12]

What will Father Urquhart be saying next month about the legal advisers to the Prussian throne? What splendid lads they are!

Kindest regards to the LADIES[13] and Edgar.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ C. Schilling, Die Ausstossung des Präsidenten Bernhard Becker aus dem Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiter Verein und der 'Social Demokrat'.
  2. ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht
  3. ↑ 239
  4. ↑ See K. Marx and F. Engels, The Great Men of the Exile (present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 284-90).
  5. ↑ Engels made a trip to Germany, Switzerland and Italy at the end of August and mid-September 1865.
  6. ↑ the street in London, where Marx lived
  7. ↑ On 18 July 1865 an agreement was concluded between the Bismarck government and the Board of the Cologne-Minden Railway Joint-Stock Company. It granted the Company's Board the right to buy up its shares which until then belonged to the government alone. This deal placed a considerable sum of money at the disposal of the Bismarck government. The agreement was to be ratified by the Prussian Provincial Diet, but on 28 August the shareholders' general meeting unanimously approved it without the Diet's ratification.
  8. ↑ in financial transactions
  9. ↑ at the end of his strength
  10. ↑ Boustrapa—nickname for Louis Bonaparte, composed of the first syllables of the names of the places where he and his supporters staged Bonapartist putches: Boulogne (August 1840), Strasbourg (October 1846) and Paris (coup d'état of 2 December 1851).
  11. ↑ A banquet of the opposition liberal majority of the Chamber of Deputies, organised by the Rhineland men of Progress (see Note 99) headed by the Town Councillor Classen-Kappelmann, was scheduled for 22-23 July 1865, in Cologne. On 17 July the Bismarck government forbade the banquet. Despite numerous protests on the part of the workers in the various towns of Germany against this arbitrary measure, most opposition members did not dare to show open resistance. Only some 80 delegates out of the 250 invited arrived in Cologne. The banquet's organiser, Classen-Kappelmann, fearing arrest, left for Belgium. Since the hall where the banquet was to take place had been closed by the police, the deputies tried to hold the banquet in the Zoological Gardens, but were driven out of it by soldiers and policemen.
  12. ↑ Returning to Siebold's letter TO MARX, Engels criticises his proposal to establish contacts with the Copenhagen Workers' Association (see Note 239). This Association was under the influence of the Danish liberal party (Eider-Danes) which advanced the slogan 'Denmark up to the Eider'. The Eider-Danes demanded that the Duchy of Schleswig, populated mainly by Germans and separated from other German regions by the Eider river, should be united with Denmark. Schleswig and Holstein were at the time when the letter was written under the joint rule of Prussia and Austria (see Note 9).
  13. ↑ Eleanor Marx