Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 8, 1866

Author(s)	Karl Marx
Written	8 December 1866

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

MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 8 December 1866

Dear FRED,

Meissner has not begun printing yet,^[1] as he wanted to finish off some other things first. I am expecting a letter from him next Monday. All in all, I found the delay by no means disagreeable, as I have only been rid of that vile carbuncle for a few days, and, moreover, my creditors are badgering me in a truly edifying manner. I only regret that private persons CAN not FILE THEIR BILLS FOR THE BANKRUPTCY COURT with the same propriety as men of business.

A while ago, Kladderadatsch printed a swipe at the Brimstone Gang in large type, in a bad lampoon on Collins' The Woman in White. The author of this garbage is that miserable Bettziech, and I should not be surprised if the order had emanated from Kinkel or Hatzfeldt. Nor have I any doubt that the old bag was the cause of Liebknecht's arrest.^[2]

The Prussian swine are acting precisely as we should wish them to. There will be no progress until heads roll.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

↑ the first volume of Capital
↑ Nos. 52 and 53 of the Berlin satirical weekly Kladderadatsch of 18 November 1866 carried a lampoon, Die Frau in Weiß. Drama in 5 Acten mit freier Benutzung von Wilkie Collins, which was directed against Marx and his comrades. Its author was Heinrich Bettziech, a German petty-bourgeois democrat, who wrote under the pen-name of Beta.
The Brimstone Gang was the name of a students' association at Jena University in the 1770s which was notorious for its members' brawls; subsequently, the expression 'Brimstone Gang' became widespread.
In his pamphlet Mein Prozeß gegen die 'Allgemeine Zeitung' which was published in 1859 the petty-bourgeois democrat Karl Vogt called Marx and his party comrades 'the Brimstone Gang'. However, this was a jocular name for a group of German émigrés that existed in Geneva in 1849 and 1850 with which Marx and his supporters were not connected. Marx exposed Vogt's slander in his pamphlet Herr Vogt which was published in 1860 (see present edition, Vol. 17). Wilhelm Liebknecht was arrested in Berlin on 2 October 1866 after he had made an anti-government speech in the Berlin Printers' Union. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment.

[1] the first volume of Capital

[2] Nos. 52 and 53 of the Berlin satirical weekly Kladderadatsch of 18 November 1866 carried a lampoon, Die Frau in Weiß. Drama in 5 Acten mit freier Benutzung von Wilkie Collins, which was directed against Marx and his comrades. Its author was Heinrich Bettziech, a German petty-bourgeois democrat, who wrote under the pen-name of Beta.
The Brimstone Gang was the name of a students' association at Jena University in the 1770s which was notorious for its members' brawls; subsequently, the expression 'Brimstone Gang' became widespread.
In his pamphlet Mein Prozeß gegen die 'Allgemeine Zeitung' which was published in 1859 the petty-bourgeois democrat Karl Vogt called Marx and his party comrades 'the Brimstone Gang'. However, this was a jocular name for a group of German émigrés that existed in Geneva in 1849 and 1850 with which Marx and his supporters were not connected. Marx exposed Vogt's slander in his pamphlet Herr Vogt which was published in 1860 (see present edition, Vol. 17). Wilhelm Liebknecht was arrested in Berlin on 2 October 1866 after he had made an anti-government speech in the Berlin Printers' Union. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment.

[1]

[2]