Letter to Friedrich Engels, October 14, 1867

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 14 October 1867


First published slightly abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA Abt. Ill, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 14 October 1867

Dear FRED,

You will see from the enclosed letter No. II from Juch that, although Achilles[1] is dead, Beta is still alive. Juch's letter was probably provoked by the fact that Beta speaks well of Kinkel but not Freiligrath, and that Beta's article also contains some malicious remarks directed at Juch. When Freiligrath and Juch form an alliance, they are incapable of producing even a bad joke. For which reason I am to be incited to action, being 'thoroughly venomous', as Beta calls me in that vile scrawl of an article he wrote: 'Die Deutschen in London', which begins with the Norman Conquest and ends with that oily Jew Bender as the sole epitome of mankind in England.

This is about the 6th time now that Mr Juch has offered me his stale columns[2] for the purpose of 'self-glorification', for him a well proven tactic which he has used, successfully of course, with Blind, Kinkel, Freiligrath, and Heintzmann. I wrote him a few lines only.[3] And not to Mr. Freiligrath's liking either. I told him privatim of what happened at Beta's How do you do? editorial office when I went there in the company of Ziegenhainer, Freiligrath, and our W. Wolff.[4] So as to give him one bad joke for his trouble, I told him that I would not allow Kinkel the credit for being more than the a and o> to this Beta.

Typical of Juch: he sends me Payne's people's calendar[5] which contains the corpus delicti (like all such abominations in Germany, Gartenlaube, etc., this calendar has 250,000 subscribers), along with the inevitable invoice for lid., which I immediately enclosed with my reply. Though admittedly he was once more on the threshold of the BANKRUPTCY COURT and has with great difficulty SETTLED with his creditors for monthly payments of 2s. 6d. in the £.

How shall I answer the enclosed from Nahmer?[6]

Has Borkheim sent you the Courrier français with the translation of my preface[7] ? I am asking because POOR Lafargue is on tenterhooks for 'your verdict'—every day. The Belgian Liberté arrived today, having ditto printed the préface, with very 'fulsome' PREAMBLE,[8] in which it reminds the Belgian government of my EXPULSION.

I had already replied to Liebknecht, but had to write to him again today because I only today received the 2 ACTS relating to the TRADE UNIONS COMMISSION.[9] Your tips attached to my letter.

Salut COMPLIMENTS TO MRS BURNS.

Your

Moro

  1. ↑ Ferdinand Lassalle
  2. ↑ in the Hermann
  3. ↑ This letter by Marx has not been found.
  4. ↑ The German-language weekly in London How Do You Do} published abusive allusions to Marx's family connection with the Prussian Minister of the Interior, Ferdinand von Westphalen (Jenny Marx's stepbrother). On 19 August 1851 Marx went with Ferdinand Freiligrath and Wilhelm Wolff to the editorial office of the paper and demanded satisfaction of the publisher Louis Drucker and the editor Heinrich Bettziech (Beta) (see present edition, Vol. 38, p. 432).
  5. ↑ A reference to the Illustrierte Familien-Kalender which had been published by A. H. Payne in Leipzig annually, since 1857. The article by Heinrich Bettziech (Beta) 'Die Deutschen in London' was published there.
  6. ↑ In his letter to Marx of 20 September 1867 a German emigre in New York, A. Nahmer, offered to translate into English Volume One of Capital. Marx asked some of his friends if they knew anything about Nahmer but none of them did, so he did not reply.
  7. ↑ to the first volume of Capital
  8. ↑ Part of the Preface to Volume One of Capital was soon published in a number of German periodicals such as Die Zukunft, No. 206 of 4 September 1867; Der Beobachter, No. 210 of 7 September 1867; Der Vorbote, Nos. 9-11 of September- November 1867; and Demokratisches Wochenblatt of 4 and 11 January 1868. The English translation of part of the Preface done by Georg Eccarius was published in The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 308 of 7 September 1867; the French translation done by Paul Lafargue and Marx's daughter Laura appeared in Le Courrier français, No. 106 of 1 October 1867 and in the Belgian newspaper La Liberté, No. 15 of 13 October 1867.
  9. ↑ In his letter of 8 October 1867 Wilhelm Liebknecht informed Marx that he and another Reichstag deputy, Reincke, intended to table the proposal that a commission should be appointed for inquiry into the workers' condition in Prussia. To substantiate this proposal Liebknecht wanted to acquaint himself with the powers of similar commissions in England and asked Marx to send him the relevant legislative acts. Marx sent him the following acts: An Act for Facilitating in Certain Cases the Proceedings of the Commissioners appointed to make Inquiry respecting Trades Unions and other Associations of Employers or Workmen which had been passed by the British Parliament on 5 April 1867, and An Act to Extend the 'Trades Union Commission Act, 1867' which had been passed on 12 August 1867.