Letter to Karl Marx, October 18, 1867

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 October 1867


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


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 18 October 1867

Dear Moor,

I have written to Borkheim that I cannot accept in any circumstances and that now that I have guaranteed him the amount, it all depends on his sources of credit, as mine are tied up.[2]

The letters returned enclosed. Liebknecht appears to have been SICK, or else he could surely have said something about the combination law. PERHAPS IT IS BETTER SO. Schweitzer has shown himself to be a vain jackass and phrasemonger. He's finished now.[3]

I was much amused by the Beta correspondence.[4]

The Courrier français has arrived, but I have no time whatsoever to form an opinion of it today.[5]

I could write another 4-5 articles about your book[6] from various points of view, but don't know where to place them. Goodness knows where Siebel is! Maybe in Algiers or in Palermo! But I hope to have an answer from him soon. If I could have them copied in London, so that my handwriting would not be recognised, it might after all be wisest to send them to Meissner.

Kindest regards to all.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Selected Letters. The Personal Correspondence, 1844-1877, Boston, Toronto, 1981.
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 448.
  3. ↑ On 14 October 1867, in the discussion in the North German Reichstag of the bill on the abrogation of the anti-coalition legislation which had been submitted by Schulze-Delitzsch, Schweitzer made a long demagogical speech. Although he did support the bill, he held a Lassallean stance denying the importance of strikes and coalitions in the workers' struggle against capitalist exploitation. He also made an attempt to expound some tenets of Marx's political economy but he did so in a primitive and distorted way. A report on Schweitzer's speech was published in Der Social-Demokrat, Nos. 122 and 123 of 16 and 18 October 1867.
  4. ↑ Ibid., p. 447.
  5. ↑ No. 308 of 6 October 1867 containing a French translation of part of Marx's preface to the first volume of Capital.
  6. ↑ the first volume of Capital