Letter to Karl Marx, June 11, 1866

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 11 June 1866


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, 11 June 1866

Dear Moor,

The crate of Bordeaux will be sent off to you this evening. It is very good wine from Borkheim. I should have sent it to you before, but the lads here have dilly-dallied over it, partly from overwork. I had written out the address for them long since. I hope that it and regular exercise will do you good. What do you say to coming up here for a week, say, end of this inst. would suit me, and then you could take the money straight back with you early in July? At the same time, you could for once have a thorough consultation with Gumpert.

We have so far just escaped the spate of bank-failures unscathed. Dronke told me himself that he was in for a bit with Barnett, but more because he had had to change his banker; he had £3,000 credit there—however, he was also a shareholder, and that's where he will lose. Eichhoff also has had the honour of seeing his banker fail, and has come a cropper to the tune of £16. He is not losing any sleep over it; if he cannot pay a bill that's due, he just lets it be.

Mr G. Kinkel has been putting it around every year that he has been offered the chair in Zurich—so, does that mean the people of Zurich are in fact really going to have to believe it at last?

In Germany it looks more like revolution every day. In Berlin and Barmen menacing crowds of laid-off workers are roaming the[1] streets. G. Ermen, who came back on Friday, told me that he happened to engage in discussion about the war with some Prussian lieutenant on the Rhine Bridge at Coblenz, and the man had been very doubtful about the issue of the affair, admitted that both the men and the leadership of the Austrians were better than the Prussians', and when G. Ermen asked, 'What would happen if the Prussians were whacked?' he answered, 'Then we'll have a revolution.' Another philistine told me that he had heard from a reliable source in Cologne that the militia companies are being dispersed among the line, and that the militia regiments are being topped up with line; the order has apparently been given out. In any case, the army must be in such a state that a victory can only be expected if the Austrians move across the frontier first, and this time they seem to be flatly refusing to do so. But, for that same reason, the Prussians don't want to move either. This state of affairs may drag on for another week, until the situation is so tense that it breaks.

There is a delightful historical irony being enacted through Bismarck's person. At the same moment that he utters liberal phrases he is forced to perform absolutist actions. In one and the same breath he will proclaim the German imperial constitution and suspend the Prussian constitution (the ordinances are already prepared).[2] Good idea to try and play the Bonaparte against the bourgeoisie with the Junkers behind one instead of the peasants!

The militia will be just as much of a danger to the Prussians in this war as the Poles were in 1806,[3] who also comprised over ⅕ of the army and threw the whole show into disorder before the battle. Only instead of disbanding, the militia will rebel after the defeat.

The whole left bank of the Rhine has been denuded of troops, there are only 2 militia regiments stationed in Luxemburg, and they say the fortress is already being secretly evacuated; in Saarlouis there is merely a militia battalion that is not yet up to strength. Von der Heydt is to arrange the Saarbrücken coal-mine and State Railway deal via Oppenheim to raise money, and the Westphalian State Railway is to be sold to the Bergisch-Märkische Railway. The bonds for its Cologne-Minden shares[4] have been advanced to the state by the Bank of Prussia, which was the sole purpose of the affair. In all this the Berlin bankers are all working hand in glove with the government.

I think that in a fortnight the storm will break in Prussia. If this opportunity passes without being used, and if the people allow that to happen, we can then calmly pack up our revolutionary paraphernalia and devote ourselves to pure theory.

Stieber is chief of police in the field, is organising the 'Blind conspiracy' and has, to this end, sent our friend Greif to London again. Can we not arrange for him to be given a good hiding?

Kindest regards.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ spontaneous generation
  2. ↑ A reference to the circular dispatch of 16 March 1866 sent by the Austrian government (see Note 316). On 9 April 1866, the Prussian government submitted to the Federal Diet a proposal that an all-German parliament be convened through universal suffrage in order to decide the question of reforming the German Confederation.
  3. ↑ Engels is referring to Prussia's defeat in the war with Napoleonic France in 1806.
  4. ↑ 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.